


streetlight

by tteguri



Category: SF9 (Band)
Genre: Alcohol, And they were neighbours, Anxiety, M/M, Slow Burn, bad copying mechanism, chani has pink hair, med student rowoon, rowoon is having an hard time, soundcloud rapper chani
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 61,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28412655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tteguri/pseuds/tteguri
Summary: seokwoo is scared of being left alone because of his not so little problem, chanhee choose loneliness to stay out of trouble.
Relationships: Kang Chanhee | Chani/Kim Seokwoo | Rowoon
Comments: 58
Kudos: 71





	1. 0.0

Kim Seokwoo is good at everything. He had always been top on his classes, he is good at singing, playing soccer and he can play piano as well. He also recently aced his entrance exam on Seoul Medical School. It’s a pity that he never attended even one class. 

He is still studying, though. He just can’t go to classes, but he is keeping up. He emailed the professors, saying that something came up, and they had no reason to not believe him and let him study on his own. He had always been a prodigy among people his ages, why Kim Seokwoo, who is good at everything, should ditch classes, there is no reason. 

So, he is fine. He’s working on his assignments, he studies, he is obviously a pretty good cook so he manages to eat healthy and he’s following a workout plan to stay in shape. 

Everything is good. 

Besides one, little, insignificant and totally forgettable fact, aka he can’t speak to people anymore. 

That’s why he doesn’t go out since months except for doing his laundry in the middle of the night, and before that he has always to be prepared, in order to not have a breakdown on his way to the laundromat. It happened once and it was so hard even walking back to his apartment, with no laundry done. That week, he washed his clothes in the sink. 

But he is fine. He deleted his sns apps, since talking to people over the phone or via text is making him feel like he’s going to die, he just uses normal text to speak to his parents, saying that he is ‘too busy’ to call or text, so he does only when he is all curled up on his favourite blanket, hugging his favourite teddy bear - don’t judge him, everyone needs comfort, even a 20 years old male - and he feels always bad after he did that. He feels like he’s out of breath, like there is no more air in his apartment so he opens every single window and sleeps in his fuzzy jacket and under like a billion blankets. 

He is fine though, he swears. He is able to study a lot and he is actually ahead on most of his classes. He just has to work a bit on this tiny issue and everything will be great. 

It’s just stress. He studies a lot, and so he did in the past, he had always to be the best in everything he did so he worked hard, he just is a bit worn out, that’s it. 

A month, maybe two, and he will be back to normal. 

He is thinking all of this, which is something that he does a lot, he repeats all those words like they are a speech he has to memorise, and he’s making dinner in the meantime, when he hears music. 

He is used to it. He lives in an apartment, so people around him make all that kind of noises, and it is not unusual to hear some classical music or even some jazz. 

But this time, it isn’t jazz, or Mozart, it is pure noise. And someone singing. 

Male voice, but he’s singing to a female one that screams in English ‘AFTER ALL THIS TIME I’M STILL INTO YOU’ and it’s like there is a fucking concert in the apartment next to Seokwoo’s. A punk concert or something and Seokwoo hates it. First, he is a pianist so he always listen to classical music and classical music only. Second, he doesn’t like English music. Third, he especially hates punk or rock music. Fourth, he hates noise. Fifth, he hates noises that he is forced to hear because people are unable to be polite. 

If everything was normal, Seokwoo would have stormed out of his apartment and screamed at whoever is playing and singing this hideous song, but well, he has his tiny problem with speaking to people. 

But he surely wont listen to that idiot is song a second more. Maybe he can scream at whoever he is to stop it and then never reply and hide in his bed. 

Yeah, sounds great. 

‘TURN THAT SHIT OFF’ he screams, and then he proceeds to run to his bed. 

He goes inside the covers, hugging his teddy bear, and in that second the noise stops immediately. 

‘I AM SORRY!’ Screams someone in return, but Seokwoo doesn’t even want to listen. He just hides, trying to ignore everything and his neighbour probably waiting for a reply. 

That what he is hating the most: people that need a reply from him or like, just people needing anything from him. All the human interactions he had were because people wanted something from him: time, money, help, everything. And he gave that, until he got drained, until he had nothing to give anymore and now even saying “thank you” to his neighbour makes him feel so anxious that he needs to seek the comfort of his bed. 

Thankfully he doesn’t say anything anymore, and Seokwoo stays in his bed all night, feeling so drained because of a simple reply. 

He is tired. A kind of tiredness that never really goes away, because every time he gains a bit of strength he has to force himself to reply to someone, to interact, even with just the cashier at the supermarket. 

He just hopes he will never see his neighbour, or like, anyone, ever again. 

Seokwoo had been a really lucky person almost all of his life. He is born in wealthy family, he is gifted with almost every talent, but since the day he got into med school, everything turned upside down and he started being the unluckiest man on heart. That is why he got that kind of problem, the one with people, and that is also why someone is now knocking at his door and it isn’t the mailman, since Seokwoo has told him to leave the packages in front of his door and ringing the bell without waiting for him to come out, it also isn’t food delivery or his groceries since he didn’t order anything. 

He pretends to not be home. 

“Hey! I’ll leave something from you here. It’s, like, a ‘I am sorry’ gift. I didn’t want to upset you yesterday night. I was just very carried away and I forgot to put headphones on. I hope you don’t hate me!”

Seokwoo waits for him to leave. He waits by the door, so he can hear the footsteps of the guy going back next door. He waits again just to be sure. 

It’s okay, he can manage it. It’s no different from when he has to take some package and he gets like, a lot of packages, since he hates going out. He just waits for the mailman to go away then he opens the door, he takes his mail and he goes back inside. He may move a little bit quicker than usual but he is sure, he doesn’t look to much different from anyone getting his mail. 

This time he feels more upset though. Maybe it’s because it is his neighbour and he can’t really be sure that he won’t come out the exact second he opens the door maybe wanting to talk. 

He sounded young. A student like him, maybe. And maybe he is friendly and he can’t wait to speak with his neighbour but Seokwoo will rather die than speaking to him, or like, anyone. 

When he is sure that the guy is inside he goes out, he grabs the Tupperware he left outside and storms back inside. His heart is racing, his breath is heavy. 

He hates it. He hates himself because if he was normal, nothing like this will happen. He would have opened the door, tolerated the guy, said thank you and went back inside, if he was normal. 

But he isn’t. He has this thing, inside of him, that is like, collapsing. It’s like playing Jenga, but with his soul or whatever. Every time people speak to him, everytime people want something from him, the take a piece of it, and the tower is now collapsing, nad he has to keep it all together. 

Sometimes is easy, when he is alone, in his room, with a drama playing on the tv and his favourite brand of cereal in a bowl on his knees. Sometimes is like a living hell, like when he has to go out or speak to his parents. 

He wants to just stop existing sometimes, not like dying, he doesn’t want to die, but just, disappear from anyone’s sight and memory, be invisible and unremembered. Be finally alone for good, without anyone watching. Everyone is always watching. 

Like now, he’d really like to stop existing. He feels terrible, because he just made a fuss out of the simplest thing like opening the door and getting a present, and he is indeed an horrible person since he got a gift and the only thing he feels is this dread and despair. He is ungrateful. He doesn’t deserve it. 

He wants to go away. He goes to the kitchen, leaving the Tupperware there, but he notices something. It’s a post it. A pink one, light pink, with something written on it in a surprisingly neat handwriting. 

‘Sorry for the music, it won’t happen again. Forgive me!’ And it’s signed by Chanhee. 

It has also a tiny half fingerprint on it, like someone held it with a finger stained with ink or paint. The tupperware is also stained by fingerprints, but opening it everything is perfectly packaged and super clean. 

There is gipmap. Like, at leats three varieties, perfectly packed like they are from a fancy store or something. 

“Can he really cook like this?” Seokwoo asks himself. 

“No! That’s from the store, I can’t!” Replies the guy, Chanhee probably, from his apartment. 

Seokwoo starts feeling the usual dreading feeling he feels everytime, mixed to annoyance: why couldn’t the guy mind his own business? Doesn’t he know that the world doesn’t revolve around him and people have bigger problems than nosy neighbours? Why can’t people leave him alone for good? Why he has always to look like the bad guy because he doesn’t want to do things that he is required to, like reply to the guy, or saying thank you or everything. 

“It’s okay, you don’t have to talk to me. You can even keep the tupperware, it’s a spare. I get it. Have a nice day!”

Something inside Seokwoo just calms down. It’s just a second, but for once he doesn’t feel bad to have talked to someone, even if he did all the work. 

Then the voice in his head, the one that sometimes whispers to him things he is afraid to even think, reminds him that people don’t do things for free. People don’t get it. So this guy, Chanhee, will surely want something from him. And he has to give it to him as quickly as he can, so he can be once for all be left alone for good.


	2. 0.1

Seokwoo doesn’t see or hear from his neighbour for weeks and he is very happy about it. He is starting to forget him actually, he remembers him only when he sees his tupperware in the kitchen but he has put him in a corner where he can’t really see it so he doesn’t think about him often. 

Besides that, he has bigger problems. His family is pressuring him to go back and see them and the idea is, of course, dreadful to him. It’s not only the train trip, but he will have to speak to them like it’s normal and nothing happened which, sadly, he still can’t do. He keeps replying super late, since the thing got pretty bad and sometimes he feels suffocating just looking at his notifications, saying he is busy studying. 

He is actually and he is also cooking a lot, like, when he doesn’t feel too bad. When he feels bad he studies, he cleans the house or iron his clothes, when he feels really bad he hugs his teddy bear in bed wanting to disappear from the world. 

But he’s like, surviving. He eats almost every day three meals a day, he is still ahead of his classes. And he speaks like, a lot. He usually repeats to himself what he had just read in order to remember it better and he has like, 0 problems with it. He speaks fluently and with no hesitation, which is funny since the last time he had to pay for his groceries he almost fainted and he couldn’t reply to the cashier asking him if he had 500 won since he couldn’t give him the change. 

But he is like, a pro, with human anatomy. He knows the Gray’s Anatomy (not the show, the book) by heart, embryo has no secrets to him and he is thinking about starting to lead physiology just for fun. He can talk for hours to himself about sodium and potassium and how they make muscles work. 

So he is okay. A little, insignificant, struggle with the change is nothing compared to the fact that he almost finished studying everything that people usually learn in their first year in med school and it has been barely three months that he is a med student. 

He’s repeating that to himself, while he walks, at 11 pm, to the laundromat, praying every god he can think of to not let him meet anyone he knows. 

He had procrastinated doing his laundry for yoo long. He usually wears sweats and a tee, and he ended up wearing his pyjamas since he had no sweats or tees clean. When he found himself washing his underwear in the sink and then drying it with his hair dryer he decided it was enough. So he’s going to the laundromat and he feels like dying. 

It’s not going out that’s a pain, he likes going out. He doesn’t like people. He usually walks far away from campus, to a laundromat that none of the students really go to since it’s too far, but sometimes it isn’t enough. Sometimes people ask him for directions, sometimes he has to buy something or to change his money and people ask him things and he hates it so much. He can’t reply most of the times because he feels like there is something heavy on his chest and he can’t breathe but he is perfectly fine so he has to force himself to ignore the fact he feels like he’s dying and try to be polite. 

Thank God now it’s really late and he won’t meet anyone. The streets are empty and he likes walking, even with his super heavy laundry bag. The night isn’t too cold and he likes looking at the city lights. Everything seems prettier at night, somehow, and poetic. He has always liked the city at night. 

He is so adsorbed in his thought that doesn’t notice him at first, and when he does, it’s too late to change path. It’s too late to even run in the middle of the street hoping that a car will hit him since no cars are passing by. 

He is screwed. 

“Seokwoo? Oh my God, hi!” says a guy, smiling and walking towards him. 

He was a senior in high school. Seokwoo can’t remeber his name or can’t be bothered by trying to recall it, since he feels the familiar weight in his chest and he feels like dying. 

The guy comes closer, patting Seokwoo’s back and weirdly hugging him with an arm. Seokwoo is really tall so it’s hard for people to put an arm on his shoulders or things like that. 

Seokwoo feels like throwing up when he touches him. He isn’t particularly fond of physical contact but now he hates it. He almost wants to scream that he feels like dying so the guys needs to leave him alone but of course he can’t. First, because he can’t breathe so he can’t speak, second, because if he does so, his reputation will be ruined. 

“How are you? Are you studying there at SNU? How come I’ve never seen you there?” the guys asks him, all friendly. 

Seokwoo hates him, he hates the fact that he knows him and he talks to him, but most importantly he hates himself, because he can’t do something so simple like replying to an old schoolmate because of this stupid thing. 

He should punish himself for this. 

It’s the first time he thinks so, and it’s the first time he is actually scared of the things his mind says to him, but he hasn’t time to be concerned about it, since he has to try to breathe and reply to the guy. 

But he can’t. 

It’s the worst one since he started to get those weird feelings. They usually came and went away pretty quickly, he just needed to lock himself somewhere for a few minutes then he was ready again to speak to people. They started getting worse after he moved out, but usually they were never as bad as this one. He never felt like crying in front of someone, he never felt like if he spoke he will die, he never felt like he’d die if he doesn’t run away as fast as he can. 

But he can’t run away or his reputation will be ruined and in a second he will be the weird one who cries and runs away from people. No one can know about this. He is Kim Seokwoo. He is perfect, and perfect people don’t feel like this. And most importantly he is normal and normal people aren’t like this. 

He can feel the tears coming, his breath being harsh and heavy, while his throat is closing and he is sure he will faint. 

It’s over. They’ll find out, and everything will be forever changed. He will be the crazy one. He will be nothing but the one who is fucked in the head and can’t speak to people. 

He has no energy left in him, he can barely stand. He can’t even pray God to save him. God won’t, though. He prayed and prayed countless times, asking for help, since the situation started, but he received none. 

So he won’t pray anymore, to be ignored again. 

But then here he comes. 

Seokwoo can’t see him at first, but he feels a hand on his shoulder, tinier than the one that belongs to his classmates, lighter. The hand just barely touches him, it’s gentle, almost like Seokwoo’s too fragile to be properly hold.

“Hey! I have been looking for you everywhere! Come with me, please, I need you immediately. Oh, sorry, I’m interrupting, but I really really need him right now. Hope you don’t mind!” 

The voice is somehow familiar, but the face that Seokwoo sees, all blurred since he is almost crying, is unknown. 

It’s a guy, he looks younger than him, probably in his teens, but maybe he’s not, since he is on campus. He doesn’t look like a student at all, though, he has pink hair, too long, and half of it is tied behind his head, probably to be out of his eyes. 

Seokwoo thinks he’s dreaming. This guy is probably an idol, he must have seen him somewhere on the tv and he is now dreaming about him and making him his saviour. Because how come a stranger can know what’s going on in his mind, and how he needed desperately to be rescued? He can’t. 

But his hand, barely touching him, is there and he can feel its weight on his shoulder. Also, his old acquaintance looks rather lost and more importantly, he looks at the pink haired guy like he is perfectly able to see him and he is not straight out Seokwoo’s fantasy. 

“Oh ... sure. Let’s catch up another time, okay, Seokwoo? It was nice meeting you.” says his old schoolmate, and Seokwoo feels pure dread at the idea that he has to reply. 

But the pink haired guy grabs him by his wrist and starts walking so fast that Seokwoo in a second is too far to even wave at him. 

For a second, he is grateful. For a second it’s almost like the weight on his chest is lifted, but when the pink haired stranger stops holding his wrist and stops walking, because they are far enough, and he turns back at him, he just opens his mouth and everything comes back again, this time ten times worse than before. 

He had one of those things, and then he wasn’t able to speak and if it wasn’t for this guy with pink hair everything would have been ruined. But now even this guy wants to talk and he felt safe for a second with him but he is now reminded that he is not. 

Ha doesn’t know him, and he is not like a character in a movie where he can be saved by someone and feel magically good. 

In reality, no one saves you. Not even the ones that look like they will. It’s all the same, with people. It’s always his throat closing, air not flowing in his lungs anymore, his vision becoming blurry. 

But this time he is sure, he’ll die. Because he can’t function anymore, because he can’t even walk, he can’t even run, he can’t even stand. He feels his legs giving up, but he doesn’t fall. 

Steady arms, tiny hands, catch him before he falls. 

“Sorry for all the touching. Can you walk back to your apartment?” 

Seokwoo can’t but he tries anyway. He puts one foot in front of the other, he stutters, like he is a baby, he feels like throwing up and hw starts coughing because he can’t breathe, and everything became a mess. He can see tiny drops on the pavement, and he puts a hand on his mouth, but he isn’t salivating. He is crying. And it’s worse. 

He is crying in front of a stranger, and he can’t even walk properly and he wants to die and he wishes to never be born, since all the things he did, all the good grades, all the awards, meant nothing. He can’t do anything. He is a failure. 

He stops trying to walk. He just stops trying to hide anything and he wants to just lay here, on the pavement, an cry and cry and cry, until he will eventually faint. 

But the pink haired guy is keeping him up. 

“Oh, come on, big guy. You can’t collapse here.” he says and he literally carries him towards the building where Seokwoo lives. 

He is tiny, compared to Seokwoo. Everyone is tiny, compared to him, the guy is probably average tall, and probably muscular since he is carrying someone who is like 20 cm taller than him. 

Seokwoo is too busy trying to breathe and crying to notice that he knows where he lives, he is too busy to notice that he knows exactly what button to choose on the elevator. He is too busy to even care about the fact that he is ugly crying in the arms of a stranger, he is too busy to do anything but trying not to suffocate.

In the elevator he collapses of the floor, his legs unable to sustain him anymore, and he lies here, face on the ground, coughing and crying and heavy breathing. 

A hand pulls him up, forcing him to sit. 

“Hold on. You need to get back home. I ... can I touch you? I can carry you back to your apartment but I don’t know if you are comfortable with it or, like, with touching.” 

Seokwoo can’t really answer. 

“I ... I felt like this too. That’s why I barged in between you and your friend. You looked like death. I felt like you needed help. And I guess you did. But don’t worry, no judgment. I had the same struggle.” 

Seokwoo can’t care less, honestly. He lets the guy carry him and he can’t even open his door, he has to give him the keys. 

He hopes to faint. He hopes to die. He hopes to disappear from the world and leave no trace. He feels so bad, so miserable, that the only thing he can hope for himself now is to disappear, since he is here, crying and panting on the floor next to his door, with pink haired guy looking at him. 

“I can stay with you.” he says, “if it makes you feel better. I used to deal with those alone but maybe you are different. I don’t mind staying.” 

Seokwoo doesn’t want someone to assist to his breakdown. He just wants him to disappear, he wants the entire world to disappear, so he will maybe live in peace. Or maybe it’s better disappearing, since he is not able to live anymore like a normal person. 

Pink haired guy seems to get the hint. 

“Okay. I’ll be next door if you need me. Feel free to ring my doorbell anytime.” he says like it’s the simplest thing in the world, like it’s perfectly normal to see someone curled up on the floor crying like this. He takes a blanket from Seokwoo’s couch, trying to cover him up, and then leaves.

Only when Seokwoo hears the neighbour’s door opening he realises what he did: he was in that state in front of his neighbour, the one who listened to that hideous song weeks ago, the one he couldn’t open the door for. 

And he feels even more terrible. 

It has been three days and Seokwoo is kinda over it. He cried and stayed in bed all the first day, the second one he stress baked so much that his freezer is about to explode and told su, on the third day, he is studying without any interruption, in spite of his headache since he can’t really sleep at night. 

He is reading about apoptosis and he is trying to memorise the book word by word. He reads and then he tries to repeat what he read out loud to his teddy bear plush, who is sitting on his desk. He keeps messing up the same part. 

“And then the cell proceeds to ... oh, wait. Fuck. I got it wrong.” 

He looks at his teddy bear, and sighs. He just wants to have it easy sometimes. Not spend hours and hours sitting in front of a book, not practicing the same song over and over on the piano, just acing something because he is naturally good at it and he hasn’t practiced like crazy. 

He wishes to be like pink haired guy. He wishes to be him, to walk around like he doesn’t have a single problem in the world, and he wishes to be the one who helps the emotional wreck that isn’t able to speak to an acquaintance and not said emotional wreck. 

And then he remembers what pink haired guy said and he almost flips his desk. 

He had the same problem. 

Seokwoo at the time wasn’t really focusing on the conversation, since he was feeling awful and he thought that he would have ended up dead or at least he hoped so, but he can remember it clearly. Pink haired guy, Chanhee, said he got the same thing. 

And he got through it? 

Yeah, he did. He had no problem speaking with Seokwoo or with his old schoolmate and he was fine. He is normal. Well, besides the ugly ass hair but Seokwoo is sure that his hideous sense of fashion is totally unrelated. 

He is fine. 

And an idea starts making its way into his brain. A very complicated idea, since it requires communicating with pink haired boy and Seokwoo has a few issues with it. 

But it’s the only way. 

If the guy, Chanhee, is able to speak normally it means he got through it somehow. And you don’t need to be a doctor to know that to heal from something you can’t heal by yourself you have to do something. Maybe he takes some medicine, or he meditates, or Seokwoo doesn’t know, whatever. He is fine. 

And Seokwoo desperately needs to be fine as well. 

He tried to google his symptoms but every single time he feels like dying and once he got to the results and the first thing he read was “living with anxiety” and then he had a breakdown and he spent the rest of his day in his bed and since then he refused to search anything related to his thing. 

But you can heal, apparently, Chanhee and his pink hideous hair are the living and thriving proof. 

He just needs to talk to him. 

It’s a pity that he actually can’t since his problem is exactly that he can’t speak to people. But he will figure it out. He has a super high iq, 153 actually, that would mean something, right? He can figure out a way to talk to him. He is smart. 

“Yeah, I can do it” he says out loud to his teddy bear. 

At least, he hopes so.

He actually has a plan. He made it. He is smart, like, genius smart, and he figured out a plan. 

He wrote a speech, he learned it by heart, he practiced with his teddy bear until his throat went dry, and he only has to meet the guy. 

Chanhee. 

He doesn’t know his surname so googling it was pointless, looking for him in the university site same. He is certainly a student, probably a first year since he looks so young.

So Seokwoo started to listen to him. He is really quiet, he can almost never hear a sound except from his door when he leaves. He sometimes plays the piano or something like this but for like five minutes then he stops. He doesn’t really talk on the phone of has anyone coming over, but he goes out a lot. 

Seokwoo planned to speak to him on a good day, pretending to meet him accidentally outside of his apartment. He is brave enough to talk to him (maybe) but sure he can’t ring his doorbell. It’s dreading just to think about. 

Seokwoo doesn’t know why he is less afraid to speak to him like this. His fears stopped making sense a long time ago, when he realised he is not afraid of going out and he is not afraid of people, but he fears people that speak to him. He just has to accept it and try to do things anyway or better, just not doing them at all is way easier. 

Not that he can easily speak to him. He hopes he will be able to, with his eyes closed, not looking at him at all and pretending to be alone in his room with his teddy bear, and he hopes to be able to hear and memorise his reply. 

And then ... he doesn’t really have a plan. Maybe run back inside, but he can’t think about it now, since his mind is all involved in what is about to happen. 

Him. Speaking to pink haired guy. Chanhee. He has to start calling him by his name. 

He hears footsteps, and his heart skips a beat, his mouth starts to dry but he forces himself to open the door a little to see if it’s him. 

It is. 

His face is red, his hair sweaty, he wears a sweatshirt and shorts and running shoes so maybe he went exercising somewhere. He still has his airpods on and Seokwoo is almost giving up, since Chanhee won’t be probably be able to hear him having music on but he takes them off right before looking for his key. 

And Seokwoo gets a little braver, which is very unusual since he usually run and hide, especially since that thing started, but he desperately needs to get better. 

So he opens the door, walks out, and he starts speaking. He doesn’t really look at pink haired guy, no, Chanhee, in the eyes, he doesn’t look at him at all, he looks down and he speaks fast. He has to, before his throat will start closing and he will have to storm back inside. 

“Hi. I don’t know if you remember me, I’m Kim Seokwoo, your neighbour. I wanted to thank you for your help. You helped me so much a few nights ago and I am really grateful for that. That night you also mentioned you had the same problem and I am sorry to ask but how did you get rid of it? I really need to know. Thank you for your answer and for your help again.” 

He sounds like a broken machine, he is sweating and he probably looks hella gross but whatever, he doesn’t really care. He did it. And he is still breathing. He feels like dying, but not like, too much. He did it. He spoke to Chanhee and now he is gonna have his answer and he will be alright and he will be able to live a normal life, finally. 

But the unexpected happens. 

“What? No. You got it wrong, dude. I can’t help you, I am sorry.” says pink haired guy named Chanhee and Seokwoo, who is still looking down, can hear him taking his key and trying to open the door. 

He feels something strange. Something he hasn’t really felt in a long time. 

Rage. 

He is usually mad at himself, but being mad at yourself for Seokwoo means mostly crying and drown in self pity, but it has been too long since he was mad to someone else. He has always took the blame on himself but now, now that he worked to hard to speak to him, this fucker won’t answer? 

Oh, fuck him. 

It’s like Seokwoo’s possessed or something, because he doesn’t do that, he doesn’t even say good morning when he walks into a shop, but now he speaks. And he has no speech prepared and he also looks at Chanhee right in the eyes. His eyes are really ugly and he looks like half asleep, just to be honest. 

“HEY! I asked you NICELY! Do you know how HARD is for ME to speak like this? I worked on my speech for days and you DARE saying to me that “you can’t help me”? BULLSHIT! If you had what I have you are now normal so that means you got through it and I NEED to know HOW!” he screams at him, not believing himself when he does. 

He is speaking. And he doesn’t feel suffocating at all, any feeling of dread is just magically disappeared. He just wants to suffocate the guy, but we’ll, whatever. 

It’s liberating.

“What? Listen to me, you need a therapist, not a neighbour. I helped you because I am nice, okay? But that’s it. I am not your therapist I am majoring in music! Go find a professional that will help you!”

Chanhee looks like a fourteen years old with cotton candy hair but surely knows how to get back at someone. 

And that makes Seokwoo even more infuriated and he is feeling the adrenaline to be able to speak to someone again and he is sure he is gonna win this. His problem hasn’t showed up and he never loses. 

“Really? So you went to a therapist?” 

“No, I burned a house down, and that’s exactly why you shouldn’t take any advice from me. Listen. I am sorry that you have all that, it sucks. But find yourself a therapist and ...” says Chanhee. 

“Therapist are for sick people. I am not sick.” cuts him out Seokwoo. 

“You are an idiot. Get therapy.”

“I don’t want therapy. I want you to tell me how you got though it.” replies Seokwoo. 

Therapy will be useless. He isn’t crazy or sick. He has a problem. A tiny one. It’s like going to an hospital for a bruised knee. Useless. And he doesn’t want to go because people who get therapy are for the most part crazy, and he isn’t crazy. He is ... in trouble. But he is not crazy. 

“You need therapy, not me. I was not joking about the burning house thing. Get a therapist, get through it, live an happy life, thank you very much.” 

“I can burn a house too. Does it help?” asks Seokwoo. 

It’s a bit of a strange thing, but maybe he can burn his ex’s house. He doesn’t deserve it but he was a dick sometimes. Revenge sounds cool. 

“NO! You are crazy. Get away from me.”’ says Chanhee and he tries to go inside his house. 

But Seokwoo isn’t giving up. He can’t. He needs his normal life back. He needs to be able to go to classes and talk to people. He can’t live like this anymore and if there is a way he can burn every single house in Seoul down with 0 regrets. 

“You said to ring your doorbell if I needed anything!” he replies. 

“Yeah, maybe advice, not a fucking therapy session I can’t give to you.” 

Chanhee tries again to get back inside, and Seokwoo has to change his tactic. Maybe if he tries to make him understand how he feels it will work. 

“Listen. I can’t speak to people. I can’t text people. I can only speak to you because I am desperate. Please. I can’t go on living alone like this, I can’t go on pretending that I am okay.” 

Chanhee looks at him, and Seokwoo’s sure he has won, because he is silent and he looks at him with something in his eyes ... Seokwoo can’t tell what it is but it’s something. 

“No. I’m not being mean but you need therapy and I am not a therapist. Really, it’s your best interest. Get therapy. You need that, not me.” he finally says, and he closes the door behind him, leaving Seokwoo standing in the hall like an idiot, without any answer. 

The fact is, Seokwoo thought that talk meant he was cured somehow. So he didn’t really get mad at Chanhee for that. He got mad because Chanhee didn’t help him and he was really rude but whatever, someone who has this terrible taste in hair surely isn’t necessary in Seokwoo’s life. 

He thought he was fine, like really fine. He thought he was healed since he was able to speak to him and so he got ready to go out the next day. He spent all the evening in a super good mood and he wasn’t even bothered by the music that came from Chanhee’s apartment. The fucker played the piano for like hours, but Seokwoo couldn’t care less. He is free. 

He went to get coffee the following morning, being so happy that he almost sang the entire way to the coffee shop. It was a sunny day, he was finally normal again, everything was good. 

Of course it wasn’t. 

He ended up spending fifteen minutes locked in the bathroom trying to breathe and crying, because he wasn’t fine at all. When the barista asked for his order he just felt like dying again, he just bolted in the bathroom and everything was horrible again. 

He had barely the energy to get back to the house. where he cried his eyes out. 

Why? He could speak to the annoying brat last night. He had no problem or was easy, like before, when he was normal. But he isn’t so he had a breakdown again and he needed two days of being in his bed without even turning the lights on to get back on his feet. 

Since that day everything felt terribile. He wasn’t able to go get groceries, he wasn’t able to go to the laundromat, he wasn’t able to do nothing that involved him going out of the house with a chance of meeting people. 

A voice in his head started telling him that he deserved it. A voice in his head started telling him he deserves even more pain. 

He wanted to disappear and he was so desperate that he followed Chanhee’s advice: he went to a therapist. 

And whatever he has played him even more dirty than usual, because when he sat on the couch, with the therapist in front of him, he couldn’t speak. His mouth refused to open, but he had no other reaction. He couldn’t cry. He couldn’t even move, he sat like an idiot, not answering to a single question. 

So his hour passed by, he got home, and he is now laying on the pavement. 

It’s over. 

He can’t do anything anymore. He can’t be saved anymore. He tried everything, he also went to a therapist because he didn’t know what to do anymore and it was the only advice Chanhee gave him and it didn’t work. 

He is fucked. 

The fact is, the pain is always there. it’s cunning, it always takes different forms: stomachache, a weight over his chest, or when it’s worst it is everywhere, and he can barely move, clinging to his pillow like it’s the only thing that keeps him from falling apart. it doesn’t work so he just collapses in his suffering. 

Nothing can cure it. 

His brain sometimes says that hurting himself will, in the most original ways, saying to him that doing that will be the best medicine, but he never does, not even when his brain wants to force him to reply at the billion text he’s ignoring that wait angrily for him on his phone even if the only idea of turning it on makes him want to die. 

It just never ends. Even on good days, it’s all over him, all over his showing ribs, because some days his stomach hurts he can’t properly eat, all over his dark circles, because his nights are restless, all over his pale face, since he really doesn’t go out anymore if it isn’t necessary. 

So the days pass by, not all the same but all with the same pain, lingering just below the surface or exploding like a bomb in his brain, or maybe it’s his heart, he doesn’t really know. 

He prays to be rescued but no one ever comes. 

He tries to rescue himself, but the world said no, it said politely to him that he doesn’t have to forget where to belong, in his pain. 

There are two kind of people in this world, he’s sure of that: the first kind is people that will have a story to tell. they’re the ones that they will be rescued, that will be able to take their pain and turn it into something meaningful and beautiful. the second kind are people like him: people that won’t have a story to tell and no one to listen to, people that will linger in their pain, for evermore, because it’s just like this, it’s just how it works, and he has to accept it. 

it’s not like he can’t live with it. He has his bad days, but on good days he can study and everything but he won’t ever go back to normal. 

Nothing can cure him. So he is giving up. 

No more therapist, no more studying, no more cooking, no more anything but laying here.

No one will care anyways. 

When he thinks that, it’s when someone knocks. And Seokwoo of course doesn’t answer. 

But he has always perfect timing. And he never gives up. 

“Seokwoo!” 

He hasn’t head that voice many times, but he knows it anyways. It is so annoying that it can belong to only one man. 

“Listen! I ... I’ll help you, okay! You ... you get a therapist and I’ll help you in anything you like! I’ll tell you everything!” 

It doesn’t make sense. Why Chanhee sounds so desperate? Why is he offering his help now, after almost two weeks, when Seokwoo has just decided to give up. 

His fate is so ironic. 

He wants to tell him that he is useless now, that he is done, he will accept that he is sick and broken beyond repair and he won’t be try to get better anymore. 

But Chanhee speaks again. 

“I didn’t ... like, I was like you. I got anxiety for the silliest things like, I threw my phone out of the window because it was making me feel bad and it was an iPhone and those things are expensive you know? I didn’t got therapy and I am probably fucked in the head you know? That’s why I think you should see a therapist as well. But I’m gonna tell you everything. How I got through it. I ... am sorry.” 

Seokwoo doesn’t want to get up, but Chanhee doesn’t want to dove up as well. 

“I really burned a house. It didn’t help and it was an accident I didn’t want to burn the whole house, just some sheets. And I got away with it, so please don’t report me to the police. I was still a minor but ...” 

Seokwoo doesn’t know how he managed to get up, or why he opened the door, since he has puffy eyes and it’s so obvious that he has been crying since like a second ago and his hair are probably a mess and his clothes same since he was laying on the floor, but he did and he is now standing in front of Chanhee. 

Chanhee looks like him, somehow. His hair are dirty and tied up in a messy bun behind his head, his clothes are wrinkled and he looks like he hasn’t slept in ages, his dark circles are so blue in contrast to his pink hair.

Seokwoo is surprised. Why does he look like this? Why is he speaking like he is the one who needs help and not Seokwoo? 

“Why?” he asks. 

Why now, why are you helping me, and most importantly, why I can speak when it comes to you? What do you have that doesn’t make me feel like dying everytime that I look at you, besides ugly ass hair? 

“It’s ... complicated. But I have been in your shoes and I would have probably killed to have someone giving me a hand. No one did it for me so ...” Chanhee shrugs and he doesn’t finish the sentence. 

“Why was your opinion different a few weeks ago?” asks Seokwoo. 

“Because you need therapy, not me. But it won’t hurt an extra help.” 

“And why ...” 

“Oh my God, you are so annoying. Why every time you speak to me you look perfectly fine? I don’t ask you that! And you know why? Because I am not a nosy ass bitch! I said I’ll help you, like you asked me to, just say thank you and accept it!” 

Seokwoo has never been called a nosy ass bitch. Usually people admire and respect him, no one ever talked to him like this. It’s talking, it’s a new situation, the perfect combo that will make him feel like dying but he doesn’t. Chanhee is right. He is perfectly fine when they speak and his question is legitimate since Seokwoo is asking himself the same thing. 

He was on the floor crying and now he is standing and he is trying not to punch Chanhee in the face. His question is legitimate and he needs his help but fuck how annoying he is. 

“Sorry if I don’t trust a stranger who was so against to help me!” 

“You had no problem trusting me when you asked for help.” replied Chanhee. 

“I was desperate.”

“You still are.” said Chanhee. 

He is right but Seokwoo isn’t giving in. 

“And your hair are beyond ugly. Do you really think pink looks good on you?” he says. 

“And you are too tall and you look 35. I’m not helping you because I think you are pretty and you don’t need my help because you think I am pretty. But okay, I guess, if you don’t need me ...” 

Chanhee turns around. 

Seokwoo usually cares for his pride. Seokwoo, if he wasn’t beyond desperate surely wouldn’t have begged the ugly ass pink haired guy. But he is, and he has no other option but giving up and maybe he is not so ready to do so. 

Maybe he can still become a surgeon. Maybe he can still have a conversation with his family and friends. Maybe he can be normal again. 

He just has to tolerate the pink haired annoying guy who happened to know how to get through this. 

“I don’t like you. But I need you. And I am so desperate I’m willing to do everything to stop feeling like I feel” he says and Chanhee stops and he smiles at him. 

Fucker. 

“Okay then. I’ll tell you everything that happened to me. But you have to see a therapist. I am not responsible to anything that happens to you.” he says. 

“I went to a therapist today. It didn’t work.” replies Seokwoo. 

“Keep going. Or I won’t help you.” 

Seokwoo doesn’t know why he cares this much. Going to therapy hasn’t made him feel nothing but miserable and he wasn’t even able to speak. What’s the point on wasting money on it? He’ll keep going, but it will be useless. He doesn’t argue, tho, he doesn’t really have time and he is afraid that Chanhee will change his mind. 

He nods. 

“Great. See you tomorrow, then. I have classes in the morning but ...” 

Seokwoo interrupts him. 

“Tomorrow? Why not now?” 

He is eager to begin. He needs to know as soon as possible, because he needs to heal as fast as he can. He needs to be like Chanhee, strong and independent but with better hair, of course. He is far better than him anyways, when he’s normal. 

“Well, you have dust in your hair an all over your clothes ... and there’s dirt as well? I thought maybe you’d like to, you know, shower and change?”’replies Chanhee, trying to hide a condescending smile. 

Well, Seokwoo was crying on the floor so of course he is dirty. But it wasn’t nice of him telling him that. Seokwoo hates him. He wants to punch him in the face. But he needs him, and he has to tolerate his attitude. Maybe the attitude is why he is healed? 

“Well, you are right. I figured you’d like to have a shower as well, looking at your hair. See you tomorrow.” he replies. 

He needs him, but he can still tease him a bit, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is very long and they hate each other i am sorry


	3. 0.2

Seokwoo is nervous. It’s the first time in a while that he meets someone like this. No one really came to his apartment since he moved and he is now waiting for his first visitor, the person who is probably gonna help him get through everything but also one of the few people in the world he can’t really stand. 

The fact is, Chanhee has an attitude. You can look past his hideous hair, his half asleep face, but Chanhee is annoying. He always replies to everything he says, and he told him he doesn’t have a cellphone (but he has airpods so what is he using them with?) and refused to exchange numbers. They just decided to meet in the afternoon, three o’clock, and Seokwoo is waiting for him since half past two. 

On a positive note, he isn’t dreading their meeting like he thought he would. He usually can’t even say hello to people but he can have full conversations with Chanhee. He can fight with him and insult him and get back at him and everything like he is perfectly healthy. So he is impatient, because he can’t wait to go back to normal, when he will be able to do that with everyone, and forget that ever happened, forget also Chanhee and his horrible hair. 

He took a shower, he spent a large amount of time fixing his hair, since Chanhee criticised it so much, and he choose a very nice and fitting shirt, with a pair of Levi’s. Classy, confident, exactly like Kim Seokwoo has always been. Except the parenthesis where he wore only pyjamas and sweatpants, but the is almost over it, right? 

He is nervous. But not like, nervous as the bad kind, the one he is so used to feel lately. He is nervous but excited because finally his life will begin again. He spent too many months locked in his house, waiting for whatever is the thing that he has to pass. 

And it will pass. Chanhee is normal. He will be normal soon as well.

He can’t wait. He can’t wait to go back to be the best in his class, the one everyone looks up to, the one everybody knows and admires. He can’t wait to be himself again. 

Chanhee rings they doorbell at three o’clock. He is punctual, Seokwoo wasn’t expecting that from pink haired annoying guy, but well, maybe he has some decency. 

He opens the door, ignoring the weird feeling in his tummy. He hasn’t had any problems talking to him before but he knows his “thing” and he knows how it is cunning and tricky. He was able to talk without any hesitation to him then he almost cried in front of the barista less than twelve hours later. 

He can’t really trust himself these days. 

But the feeling remains just a feeling and there is no weight on his chest and he can breathe just fine, when he opens the door. 

Chanhee has washed his hair as well. He has it half tied behind his head like he did the first time they met and he is wearing an adidas tee, sweatpants and slippers. He surely hasn’t put any effort in his outfit, but his face looks better than the day before, like he has finally slept. 

He is fidgeting with his drawstrings, though, and for a second he looks like a child who has lost his mom, and not like an annoying little brat. 

Of course it’s just a second. 

“Hi. Nice outfit. Do you always dress like that at home?” he says sarcastically. 

Seokwoo hates him even more. 

“I am polite therefore if I have guests I dress nicely.” 

Seokwoo looks at Chanhee’s clothes and raises his eyebrows eloquently. 

“I am sorry, the suit I usually wear when I have tea with the Queen of England is in the wash.” 

Seokwoo has to remind himself that Chanhee will help him, and he needs him, and punching him in the face won’t be helping his cause. 

“Whatever. Sit.” he says, and he sits on the couch, inviting Chanhee to sit next to him hoping he will do it as far as possible since he won’t tolerate close proximity to an idiot like him. Maybe his attitude is contagious. 

Chanhee sits on the floor and Seokwoo is ready to complain about it since why on heart someone would sit on the floor in a house that isn’t his when he was invited to sit on a comfortable couch, and he wants to tell him that he is impolite and rude acting like this but Chanhee speaks first. 

“I did my research. I think I know why you are able to interact with me like this.” he says. 

“Because you are sitting on the floor? And that is ...” starts saying Seokwpo but Chanhee speaks again. 

“I sit on the floor because I don’t know how comfortable you are with physical touch. Like, I hated it. I hated even when people sat next to me on the subway or on the bus. And also I am more comfortable sitting here. I like the floor more.” 

He is insane. But he can talk so Seokwoo has to stick with him until he’ll know his secret. Then he won’t speak to him ever again. 

“So, I was saying, I was curious because I mean, you seem to be really unable to be around people but you seem so fine when we speak. So I looked it up and I found this House MD episode ...” he is saying and Seokwoo laughs. 

“You really thinking that a tv has any relevance?” 

Chanhee glares at him. 

“I am majoring in music. This is why I told you you need a therapist and why I am insisting on you seeing one. I am not qualified.” 

“Well, since I am actually a med student I can tell you, tv shows and anything you read on the internet is bullshit.” says proudly Seokwoo. 

He always likes saying to people that he is a med student. He likes it because everyone thinks med student are like, an elite or something. He is a part of it. Everyone wants to be like him, as smart as being a med student in SNU. 

He expect Chanhee and his useless music major to be impressed but he tries to hide a little laugh. 

What? 

“Well, Mr. Med Student, you asked for my help. Since you are so prepared in this field, why didn’t you look it up by yourself? Don’t you have like, a book or something where they explain why you have whatever you have? And maybe they also tell you why you are an annoying and self entitled bitch.” 

Seokwoo hates him. It’s pretty much everything he did since Chanhee was in his house but well, he now does even more. 

“Listen. I may not seem like it but I am smart. I have a super high IQ. 153, actually. And yes, I have a problem and it makes hard for me to do things. I can’t google it because if I do I have a breakdown. I can’t text my friends because I feel like suffocating every time I unlock my phone. I can’t go to class because I feel like dying every time someone says hi to me. I can’t speak to people anymore and the only one I can do that with is you and you are annoying, you think you are better than me and you are not even respecting me!” 

He is screaming at him, and he doesn’t really scream at people anymore since well, he doesn’t talk. But it feels so liberating that he wants to cry. He doesn’t , though. 

“You think you are better than me! You say you are so smart and you are a med student and you laugh at me when I try my best since I am doing “only” music. You think you are so much better than everyone and now you have a problem and you won’t even admit it to anyone but me since I am worth nothing! Well, I may be no med student, I may not be as smart at you or as elegant as you but well, I am now able to live a normal life without begging strangers for help. You say you are so smart but you didn’t even think to go to a therapist and you know why? Because you are so full of yourself that you think you don’t need therapy, you are too perfect for therapy. You think that we will have a brief conversation and it will be all over and you won’t see me ever again, because you are so special and so perfect that you’ll get through it in half the time it took me.” 

The fact, Chanhee is right. But Seokwoo doesn’t think he is better than everyone else, he is. He is pretty, he is smart, he can do everything. He may not be a genius, but he works hard. He deserves to be praised and admired. And no matter his tiny little problem, he is still one of the best students in the university. He just wants to be seen as he is. It’s not his fault he is perfect. Well, besides that tiny little problem. 

And yeah, maybe he is not taking care of it well. He is a med student he knows that you aren’t supposed to ignore when you feel like that but he just couldn’t do anything. Even asking hideous pink haired guy named Chanhee was hard. Going to therapy made him feel so bad that he hates the idea of going back and he feels his throat closing at the idea. But he is trying and he is doing a fair job in his opinion. It’s not his fault that Chanhee doesn’t know anything about medicine and he thought a tv show was accurate. 

It’s his fault. 

“Yeah. I think I am better than you. Well, I don’t think I am better than you, I am. And ...” 

Chanhee rolls his eyes. 

“At least you are honest. But listen. You are a first year med school and you are terrified by the thing you have. You need me. You got attached to me like the patient did to Dr. House on the episode I mentioned before. You speak to me because you bonded with me. You may not liking it but it happened. You may despise me but there is a part of you that trusts me.”

“Well, if a tv shows says so ...” says Seokwoo. 

He probably isn’t wrong, and he hates him for that. Seokwoo clearly feels something towards him. Not only hate and annoyance. He wants to be like him, he wants to know more about him, grab his secrets to a decent life and then finally living freely. 

And also, Chanhee helped him. Chanhee never judged him for his breakdown, he doesn’t make him feel wrong or anything about that because he felt it too. And he survived. He judges him for everything else and he despises him but not that. 

And he is right. 

Seokwoo needs him. 

“But whatever. How did you get though it? The faster we get to the point the faster we end this conversation.” adds Seokwoo. 

“You still think I am an idiot.” 

“You are. You are majoring in music and you have those hideous pink hair ...” replies Seokwoo. 

“I bet you are the fun one at parties.” 

“I am the pretty one everyone wants to speak with, thank you very much.” 

Chanhee rolls his eyes again. 

“I was speaking about real parties, not the ones where you went to with your parents. But probably you weren’t invited.” 

Seokwoo is ready to speak again about how he hasn’t really time to go to parties and actually he went to a few “real parties”’when he was still with his ex boyfriend since he was in university at the time and he was bored and he can’t really tolerate drunk people but Chanhee speaks again. 

“I won’t bore you with details, but a certain point in my life something happened and I started getting overwhelmed. I hated when people asked me out, I hated talking to my classmates and I hated even saying thank you to my friends when they got gifts for me for my birthday. I hated being with people, even just in the same room. Everything felt to heavy.” 

“And it’s like you can’t breathe” adds Seokwoo, “it’s like you have to force yourself because you can’t be the crazy one and not be thankful or not hanging out or anything, and it feels like having something on your chest that suffocates you.” 

Chanhee looks at him and for a moment Seokwoo doesn’t hate him at all, because he can see in his eyes he knows what he is talking about. 

“I don’t know precisely what do you have, but I thought it through and I found out my problem were people. People were too demanding and I couldn’t meet their needs and standards anymore. I was too tired.” 

Exactly like Seokwoo. He feels so lucky because the things Chanhee is saying are exactly the things he feels too, so his solution will probably work wonders for him. He can’t wait to know. 

“So” says Chanhee, “I stopped having people in my life. And everything went away and I am now able to do everything that I need to do without people bothering me. That’s it.” 

What? 

It isn’t surely what Seokwoo expected. How can you remove people from your life? How could Chanhee? That means he doesn’t have friends? He doesn’t have a girlfriend or a boyfriend? He doesn’t speak to his family? How can he expect to be successful in life all alone without anyone praising him? 

“What ...?” says Seokwoo shocked. 

He can’t do that. He loves his family and his friends, he needs them. He can’t live all alone. He can’t. It’s insane. How can someone live without people in their life? It just doesn’t work. There are classmates and acquaintances and people everywhere. He’s crazy. 

“I moved to Seoul, and I don’t have a phone. Well, I got one but I don’t have a sim card in it I only use it for music and notes. I go to classes but I don’t really talk to people if it isn’t necessary and I am never friendly. I am polite to everyone but I don’t get close to everyone. and it’s easier since nowadays everyone talks to each other with their phone and I don’t have one. I refuse any invitation to study together or going out until people leave me alone. I eat alone, I sleep alone, I study alone. It worked wonders. I am alone and I am happy. Every single problem I got was because of people, removing them form my life was the best decision ever: I sleep peacefully at night, no one bothers me, if I go somewhere I can only do whatever I please, I became more confident since no one is really here to judge me since there is no one. Besides you of course.” he explains. 

Seokwoo is speechless. 

“I told you, you need a therapist, not me. But that works for me. I don’t have any more trouble with that. I only ... never mind.” says Chanhee. 

Seokwoo finds it even more insane. You can’t live without people. People who do so are crazy. What if he needs help? What if he needs to vent? How does he spend his free time, all alone? Doesn’t he get bored? How can he deal with everything all alone? 

Like you did, says the voice in Seokwoo’s head. 

It is right. Seokwoo hasn’t found comfort in his friends or family in a long time. Just fear and pressure and like Chanhee said, everything was overwhelming. 

He won’t live like Chanhee, this is insane and he wants a normal life and a husband and a lot of friends, like a normal person, but how nice will it be, being finally left alone, being finally able to think only about himself without being constantly pressured by others. How nice will it be not having to reply to anyone, not making up anymore excuses, not having to hear about their struggles anymore but only focus on his own.

Everyone wants something from him. And Seokwoo’s tired to give everything to them. 

But he can’t stop because he wants a normal life and he doesn’t want to live like a fucking hermit like Chanhee. He is surely crazy, fuck, he had to notice since the pink hair thing. 

“You are crazy! How can you live like that?” 

“I live perfectly “like that”. I don’t cry, I don’t feel overwhelmed anymore I just feel relaxed. I can talk to people if I want to but I don’t usually do that if it’s not necessary. I can do anything alone.” says Chanhee. 

Seokwoo is jealous, somehow. He hates how he lives and he won’t ever live like that but how nice would it be? How quiet. And Chanhee is okay, he is happy, he is beyond ugly with those hair but whatever he is free. 

And Seokwoo won’t ever be like this. He will be always caged in relationships and expectations. 

“Isn’t it lonely?” he asks. 

“It was lonelier before. People made me feel even more alone than what does being actually alone.” 

Seokwoo can totally relate to that. 

“But I can’t. There has to be another way.” he says. 

“Therapy.” replies Chanhee. 

“I can’t speak to my therapist. I can only speak to you. And like, sometimes I can say good morning or thank you if I’m having a good day.” 

“I don’t have any other way. Are you traumatised? Like, something happened in your life and then you started feeling like this?” 

“You can’t ask people that! It is insensitive and besides that trauma is not something so simple that ...” tries to correct him Seokwoo. 

“Hey. Remember. Music major. I have no clue but I am trying my best. Like, for me something happened. It wasn’t like, big, but there was something.” 

Seokwoo goes back with his memory. He rewinds his life until he was fine, when he had everything a guy can wish for: a nice house, loving parents, a sibling that is more like a best friend but has opposite interests as him so there hasn’t been any competition between them, a handsome boyfriend and a trusted group of friends.

Maybe it was when he stopped having an handsome boyfriend. Maybe it was when one of his friends broke his trust. Maybe it was when another one ghosted him when he told him he wanted to go to SNU. Maybe it was when his brother got accepted into a big company and he was having an hard time so he took it all on him. 

It isn’t a trauma. People break up all the time with friends and boyfriends, people have a hard time all the time with their siblings. Those are normal struggles in a normal life. 

But something must have been broken, and Seokwoo couldn’t cope anymore. 

“I got no trauma. But something happened. Like, minor things. Ordinary things.” he says. 

Chanhee stays in silence for a while. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it” says Seokwoo, “I barely know you.”

“Talk about it to your therapist, will you? Someday you’ll be able to do it.” replies Chanhee 

“I can’t talk to people.” reminds him Seokwoo. 

So it was useless? Chanhee has no answer besides living all alone for the rest of his life? He can’t. He has friends and family and he wants to be able to live with them. He wants to get married someday and open a clinic with his husband name. He wants to throw parties like his parents’, full of people that politely talk to each other. He doesn’t want to dye his hair a pastel color and live alone in his apartment for the rest of his life. 

He is about to ask Chanhee to leave since he is useless, but then Chanhee’s eyes widen, like he got some extraordinary idea. 

“Hey! You can’t speak to people but you can be around people, right? I mean, if you have to walk alone on a street where no one talks to you you are okay with it, right?” 

Seokwoo hasn’t done that. He doesn’t really go out since he is afraid to meet someone he knows that will talk to him, he likes walking but he only walks to places far away to not meet anyone while he does grocery shopping or gets his laundry done. 

It has been a while since he thought that going out is fun and not something that he has to do. Of course he remembers when he liked it, when he went out with his ex boyfriend and he was so happy walking on the streets, when he spent the afternoon with his friends studying on a coffee shop and laughing with them. 

He used to like it. He had forgot that. 

“I don’t know.” he replies. 

“Then let’s try it. I used to hate crowded places and being near people but maybe you are different. I read that everyone experience it differently” 

“So you can read.” says Seokwoo and Chanhee glares at him again, “It was a joke, come on.” 

“You are not funny.” 

“Then why are you helping me?” asks Seokwoo. 

He is genuinely curious.

Chanhee came to him like he was the one who needed help. Like it was Seokwoo that will rescue him, but of course he can’t be rescued since he is fine. Maybe he just had a bad day or something. Still, he looked a bit desperate. And Seokwoo can’t wait to use that against him. 

“Because I want to go to heaven when I’ll die and helping you surely will give me a bonus. So, are you ready? We’re a going out.” 

Seokwoo was too busy making fun of him to understand that he was serious. And he can’t go out. It’s like, five in the afternoon, people are out. He can meet someone he knows and he’ll rather die. 

So Chanhee is really that dumb. 

“I can’t. People will talk to me.” he says. 

“We’re going where no one knows us, and you can wear a hat and a mask. But if you are not comfortable we’re not doing that. It was just a suggestion since I thought that maybe you should try it. You said people are the problem so I figured that maybe ...” 

Yeah, Chanhee figured. Chanhee who knows nothing about anything and thought that cutting out everyone from his life was a smart decision and not like, a totally crazy one. Seokwoo wants to tell him how much he is useless, how much he thinks he is an idiot because he hasn’t even tried to get better he just avoided the issue and he is a coward and everything but then he realises two things. 

One: he is doing the same thing as him, avoiding the problem as best as he could. But he’d rather not think about that. 

Second: he has no other option but Chanhee. And therapy, but Chanhee said therapy was mandatory so he has to go anyway even if it’s useless and he doesn’t even say hello to his therapist. 

And Chanhee was right, his fucking thing learned watching a fucking tv show was right: Seokwoo is comfortable with him. He hates him and he can’t stand him but like, Chanhee knows everything and he doesn’t care about him being weird. He was weird too. He still is, but he is functional and he hides it pretty well, besides the hair of course. Chanhee is the only person Seokwoo can speak to without feeling like dying. So he is the only person in the world that can help him right now. 

“Let’s try it.” says Seokwoo, “but if I feel even a bit uncomfortable like, a single bit, I’m out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chanhee may be clueless about many things and please don’t avoid people like he does because it’s pointless, but he is right about therapy so if you need any help please consider it! seokwoo is a bit annoying but i promise he will get kinder soon, thank you for reading and see you very soon!


	4. 0.3

It didn’t go bad, and Seokwoo wasn’t honestly expecting that. Chanhee may be definitely less intelligent than him but he knows how to deal with that kind of situation. 

Seokwoo hates to admit it, but Chanhee is really good with this stuff. Probably better than him, but well, he got plenty of experience taking care of himself and Seokwoo is kinda new to the situation.

First, he does most of the talking but he sticks to the topic. He doesn’t speak about himself too much, he just says the necessary informations to Seokwoo. That helps a lot since Seokwoo isn’t forced to have any conversation or even to reply. He does though, because replying to Chanhee is easy. 

Chanhee never once asked him for anything. He doesn’t need to be heard or he doesn’t need Seokwoo’s opinion on things. He just asks questions concerning Seokwoo and how he likes things. He does because he is crazy and he doesn’t fraternise with people but it is so nice not having anyone ready to tell all of their problems to you when you have enough on your own. 

Second, he is extremely cautious. Seokwoo had to tell him he doesn’t mind physical contact because he is always careful to keep his distance, and when he said they were going to ride his bike he asked Seokwoo if he was comfortable doing so or he’d like to take a cab. 

Seokwoo, of course, would have chosen a cab. First, he doesn’t know how to ride a bike. Secondly, he hates the idea of riding a stupid bike around the city when he can easily afford a cab. 

But taking a cab meant being in a car with a stranger that maybe will try to make conversation and Seokwoo felt terrified at the idea. It was better taking Chanhee’s bike, definitely. 

Chanhee suggested the subway as well but Seokwoo wasn’t feeling ready to get stuck on there and maybe to meet someone he knows with 0 chances to escape fast. 

So the bike was their only option. They had a bit of a fight: Chanhee thought that Seokwoo, since he is way taller than him, could’ve rid the bike but well, he doesn’t know how so he had to sit behind him trying to keep his “fucking too long legs” out of the way. 

The bike ride was nice. Chanhee ended up being all panting and sweating, cursing at Seokwoo because he was too heavy and he did all the work. Seokwoo felt weird at the beginning since he had to almost hug Chanhee and it wasn’t exactly something he was eager to do, but then he actually enjoyed it. Not the hugging part, of course, but the ride. 

He was able to wander to the city without being constantly afraid to meet known faces: he is on a bike and he can hide is face on Chanhee’s back (he hoped to not have to since he was all sweaty just after five minutes and it was kinda gross even if he was wearing a super thick padded jacket) and they are going pretty fast. 

So he was able to look at the town, it was already darkening but there was enough light to let him look around. 

He loves Seoul. He had always thought he would have explored the city once he’ll got there but then he had that problem and he couldn’t do it. It’s the first time he is going this far and he is feeling good. He could see places he didn’t really had the chance to visit before, he saw the skyline and then Han river and he was just so happy. He had forgot all those things, stuck in his little apartment, too afraid to go out. 

But why? He could’ve rode the subway late at night or super early in the morning, like he does when he has to get groceries, but he has never thought about it. He just thought that outside = people that know him = bad but it isn’t like this all the time. 

And being outside is actually so nice. He feels like he can breathe better, even if the cold air is freezing his face and his hands, since he doesn’t wear gloves. 

His hands are so cold. He can’t help it, though, and he tries to ignore the feeling as much as he can, because he is so ... calm. Everything is calm and nice and he is outside an it is not terrifying. Everything is good, for once, and even if his hands will probably freeze he feels like it doesn’t really matter. 

When they stop at the Han river, at a nice spot, not too crowded, his hands are red and probably his face and ears are too. Chanhee’s are, but he looks not as bad as he usually looks, honestly. His hair are still horrible and now sweaty, he looks like he is about to faint and he says, panting: “Fuck, you are heavy! I’m not doing this, like, ever again. Fuck you.” 

Seokwoo doesn’t really feel sorry. Besides that, he is skinny. He works out at home so he is in perfect shape, thank you very much. And he is so happy to be here, outside, not feeling in danger for the first time. 

No one besides Chanhee knows him here. There are mostly old people around, sitting and chatting with each other, and a few couples, some with kids, some alone. 

No one is gonna talk to him, no one is gonna bother him asking him question none of them care about just because people are so obsessed with talking. No one is gonna need him, no one is gonna tell him about their problems. There’s just Chanhee who is cursing him but he is Chanhee and he is tolerable. 

And the river is just beautiful, looking at the water makes him feel calmer and relaxed. And it’s his first time seeing it from up close.

He feels so good, he feels so free, being out of the cage he locked himself into because people were too much. He now feels like he is out of it, but he knows it is just a feeling. His cages are mental, he is not stupid. He knows that he locked himself inside because of something in his head an that something is still there and will probably explode if someone just waves at him. 

But he made it until there, and he didn’t even think he will be able to. He had all his life planned until retirement, but when everything started he just stopped thinking about certain stuff. Like, he never thought anymore about going outside without having to for like, groceries and stuff. He never thought about making friends. He was locked inside, not only inside his apartment but also inside his head, inside all the cages and the walls he built because people kept breaking him so he needed to protect himself. 

He is still locked in. But it feels like seeing a window, for the first time, behind bars and walls. 

It’s something insignificant, but it’s like, a lot for him. 

He almost doesn’t hear Chanhee until he grabs his hand, interrupting his thoughts. 

He looks at him, surprised. How come that Chanhee who was so careful until like a minute ago with physical touch he is now touching him? Not that he minds that, well, his hands are warm and Seokwoo’s are still freezing. 

“You hands. Put them in your pockets before they like, freeze or something.” says Chanhee, putting his own hands in his pockets, after taking out his gloves. 

“I don’t have any. And it’s okay, I don’t really mind ...”

Chanhee grabs Seokwoo’s hands and puts them in his pockets. Seokwoo wants to protest since it looks like he is hugging him and people might think that they are together or something but when he feels the warmth inside the pockets he thinks that maybe he can leave his hands there for a few seconds. He is freezing indeed. 

“Buy yourself a padded jacket, not this useless coat without pockets. It’s winter.” 

Seokwoo wants to tell him that his designer coat is very elegant and he looks amazing wearing it since green compliments his hair a lot, but he is so cold and the adidas padded jacket Chanhee’s wearing looks very very warm so he doesn’t really reply. 

“You need to buy gloves too. I can’t lend you mine since you have those enormous hands and mine won’t fit, but I’d very like not having you complaining about your precious hands being frozen.” says Chanhee. 

“I didn’t complain.” objects Seokwoo. 

“Weird. You complained about how my bike is ugly and on the fact that I don’t have a driver license and also about my clothes and my hair and ...” 

“Why are you doing this? You clearly have no respect for me, but you helped me, you took me there on your bike and you are keeping my hands warm. Why? You said I am a self entitled bitch.” asks Seokwoo. 

He instinctively tries to take his hands out from Chanhee’s pocket but he doesn’t let him. 

“I don’t like you but that doesn’t mean your hands need to freeze.” he replies. 

“You didn’t reply to my question” 

“So you are smart. As I said, I don’t like you. I don’t think anyone likes you. I mean, you really think you are better than anyone else.” says Chanhee. 

Seokwoo is happy to prove him wrong. 

“Actually, everyone likes me. I have always been popular, everyone admired me and I got so many confessions during high school and middle school, everyone wanted to sit next to me in class and ...” 

“And they liked you because you were a great student and all that, or they liked you for you?” asks Chanhee. 

“What? I am a great student, that is what I am I am ...” 

“You are Seokwoo. Just Seokwoo.” corrects him Chanhee. 

And Seokwoo knows he is right. He has always knew about it. He had all these people around him but none of them like him for him. They liked his grades, his face, his ambitions, the way he was good at everything. 

They didn’t like him for him. 

It’s Juho, is brother, his twin, who isn’t as good at school, who isn’t the best at playing piano and he doesn’t even attend music school, who also never went to university, because he got accepted in a company as a trainee. 

Juho is not as pretty as him (they’re not identical twins, they don’t look alike) is not as smart as him and he is just barely good with music and dancing but he has always had so many friends. More than Seokwoo. 

Everyone instantly loves him, everyone is charmed by his warm personality and no one asks him about grades or piano competition or SAT. They ask him about his music but he got rejected like a million times before making it and everyone loved him anyways. 

Seokwoo never failed, Seokwoo is perfect but he knows deep down that people doesn’t see him like they see his brother. Juho is the one everyone likes better. 

Seokwoo likes him too. Juho is his best friend. He was never once jealous of him, or has anything but positive feelings towards him. Even when Juho had a super had time and threw all his frustrations down on him - he just vented, Juho is nice and kind and he is never mean to him, not even when they fight - Seokwoo had nothing but love and concern towards him. 

But he knows he will always be the second one to everyone, no matter how good it will be in everything, compared to him. He may be fist in competitions, he may be the best one in school and in sports and everything but he won’t be the first in people’s heart. 

He was never bothered by it too much though. He always thought that he will eventually be the first to someone and when he got a boyfriend he thought he did it. His boyfriend loved him and he told him countless times that he was the first one in his heart. 

And Seokwoo was okay with that. Everyone admired him, he was better than his brother in a lot of things and he may be not as charming as him but he is the one everyone wants to be. They want to be friends with Juho but they want to be like him. And when he felt down for being the second one, he had Inseong that loved him and put him first. 

Then they broke up.

Seokwoo is over it, but he doesn’t want to think about that. Not when he was happy just a minute ago. 

“I am sorry. I didn’t want to ...” says Chanhee, but Seokwoo doesn’t want to hear his apology. 

“It’s fine.” 

“People don’t like me either. I mean, you don’t like me too. And they didn’t like me before the pink hair and all the ‘I don’t want to interact with people’ thing. So, well, don’t be too bothered by people. People are useless. I used to be so concerned with what people thought of me. “Why they don’t love me” kind of stuff. But in the end, it is just a bother. I don’t have any friends now and I have never been happier. No one bothers me, no one will betray me and no one asks me for things. People are useless and their opinion is useless too.” 

“You don’t have to cheer me up. You didn’t have to do all this. I mean, you told me what you did to get better, you didn’t have to take me here and all that.” replies Seokwoo. 

Chanhee looks away, like he is bothered by what Seokwoo just said. 

“I felt guilty. I know you hoped I got a cure but I got none. And of course you can’t give up on people like I did. I am sorry. But I told you, get therapy. I am sure you will eventually get better.” he says. 

“Why you didn’t get any?” asks Seokwoo. 

Chanhee seems confident about therapy. But he said earlier he didn’t went to a therapist, and that looks a bit weird. Why not getting help instead of cutting people out of his life? Wasn’t he missing his friends? Was he really happy, being all alone?

“I didn’t want to talk about what made me like this. I still don’t want to. Don’t make that face, I told you it isn’t anything bad. Nothing dramatic. And this isn’t an excuse for you to not go. Keep going”

“I don’t want to talk about ... really anything, either.” says Seokwoo. 

“But you have to.”

“Why do you care?” asks Seokwoo, “and don’t tell me again the heaven bullshit.” 

Chanhee hesitates.

It’s now dark, and the only source of light are the streetlights. Chanhee’s skin looks golden, under the streetlight where they are. Seokwoo is so close to him that he can see his lashes, long and thick, the little blue around his eyes, that shows up a little. He looks ... not bad. 

“Because you are like me. I mean, I think I am a bit nicer than you and I also I don’t look so snob but we are similar.” 

“I don’t look snob” replies Seokwoo. 

“You are.” 

“I am just classy” says Seokwoo and Chanhee laughs. 

“You are just an idiot. But you are like me, somehow.”’

And he is right. Seokwoo doesn’t really want to relate to someone with horrible hair and horrible taste in fashion, but they are indeed alike. 

They are both stubborn, they both despise each other but they can’t help to stick together. They won’t ever be friends, or even just fully tolerate each other but they maybe can be allies in all of this, at least for a night. 

They’re both on the run from something. They don’t know where they are going, at least Seokwoo doesn’t know, but they are both two cowards who can’t face their own problems.

“I just have a better taste, better hair and ...” 

“No wonders why people don’t like you” cuts him short Chanhee. 

Seokwoo doesn’t get offended, which is weird, he always gets offended. But he knows Chanhee doesn’t mean any harm. 

Chanhee is kind. Annoying, dumb, but he knows how to be sensible, and he has always put extra attention not to hurt him. And no matter how much he gets on Seokwoo’s nerves, he appreciates him a lot.

“They don’t like you either.” he replies. 

“At least I know how to be nice. You don’t.” 

“I am nice, but not to you. You are extraordinarily annoying. Usually I am nice. Then, if I am not nice to you, why are you nice to me? Not very clever.” asks Seokwoo. 

“You don’t really trust people nice to you for no reason. You know, once someone said ‘never be so kind you forget to be clever, never be so clever you forget to be kind’. I’m trying to live like that” 

The quote sounds familiar to Seokwoo. 

“I’ve heard that before. Is it Emily Dickinson or something?” he asks. 

Chanhee laughs so hard that Seokwoo he’s afraid he’ll choke on his own laughter. What’s so funny? He looks at him with a glare. Probably he doesn’t even know who Emily Dickinson is. 

“Oh my god, you are really something” Chanhee says. 

He is almost tearing up and Seokwoo feels the urge to punch him in the face. What’s so funny? 

“Well, I just asked ...” he mutters. 

“Oh boy. And you said some fancy poetry shit. Dude, come on” says Chanhee, keep laughing. 

“And so? I am a man of culture and ...” 

“Seokwoo. It’s Taylor Swift.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you thought it was over with taylor swift but it isn’t, i am literally 70% of taylor swift lyrics instead of water


	5. 0.4

It was somehow unsaid, but they were done. After that night, after keeping his own hands in Chanhee’s pockets, after riding his bike hugging him looking at the streetlights with his cheek resting on his back, Seokwoo just knew it was over. 

Chanhee has no answer, so he is useless to Seokwoo. And Seokwoo is something that Chanhee really doesn’t want to have in his life: a person. 

So it was natural never seeing each other again, parting their ways for good. Maybe they’ll bump into each other, maybe they’ll say hi, but they were sure they will never share another moment like this. They will never be close like this. 

Seokwoo realised he will miss Chanhee, somehow. He will miss having his cheek pressed onto his back in the cold winter hair, the feeling of his firm muscles even under the padded jacket. His warmth. He felt so good, for the first time in months. He will miss this. 

But it’s okay. Life goes on, and they have no reason to walk together anymore. 

But something changed. Something little, something almost insignificant, that started the next day in the morning with Seokwoo looking on amazon to see if he could purchase a bike. Turns out he could and so he did. 

He had to wait for it, so since he was already on his laptop, he googled the Taylor Swift lyrics Chanhee said to him last night. He didn’t like the song, as he expected to. He has only ever listened to classical music, so a mediocre pop song isn’t exactly his jam. So he closed the tab, ready to forget that ever happened. 

But something went wrong. 

And it’s nine in the evening, the next day, and Seokwoo is now blasting “You belong with me”  
which is a super old Taylor Swift song, dancing in his room and singing along to it, pretending to having a concert for his teddy bear, who is playing his public. 

“IF YOU COULD SEE THAT I’M THE ONE WHO UNDERSTANDS YOU BEING HERE ALL ALONG SO WHY CAN’T YOU SEE? YOU BELONG WITH ME”

His teddy bear doesn’t react much but well, it’s just a stuffed plush. 

And honestly, this isn’t even Seokwoo’s favorite song, or album. His favorite song is Love Story, and his favorite album 1989. He spent like, all day listening to her albums and he didn’t like them at first, but he just couldn’t stop listening. She was very relatable, honestly. 

The thing is, classical music isn’t really easy to sing along. Seokwoo sometimes hummed the melody while playing, but he never really listened to anything he can sing like this, anything he can perform like he is Juho who is always listening to something with his headphones and dancing to it, sometimes really well, sometimes just for fun. 

And then the lyrics. Seokwoo isn’t exactly very lucky, with relationships. He had only one boyfriend and he dumped him and he felt terrible after. So it was really nice having someone that sings exactly the words that he wants to say to Inseong, but he can’t, because he isn’t in touch with him anymore and also because if he met him he will probably be unable to speak, or, worst case scenario, he will be crying. 

But it’s fun pretending to scream all his feelings to him and dancing across his bedroom while the cruelest break up songs are playing. He never did that. Maybe that’s why it still hurts, even after months. 

It’s also nice listening to the love songs. 

Seokwoo hadn’t really much time to think about love. Surely, he dreamed that the second Inseong left him stranded a wonderful, marvellous man, hopefully someone like Lee Dongwook, who happened to be his celebrity crush since he binge watched Goblin when he was home with the flu, and Inseong would have been easily forgotten. 

Of course nothing happened, and while Inseong after a few weeks was kissing another boy on his Instagram Stories Seokwoo was home crying watching Stairway to Heaven, which is a very sad and old drama. 

Then the thing happened and of course it isn’t like Seokwoo can meet anyone right now. He met only Chanhee and Chanhee is definitely not the kind of me who suits his tastes. He never thought he will fall in love again, because he was too busy being worried about everything that is happening. 

But thinking about it now isn’t only remembering Inseong, therefore being heartbroken, it is also thinking that maybe someday, when he’ll be back to normal, he’ll find someone again. He doesn’t really want to think about it now, he is still in the phase where he pretends to marry Lee Dongwook with Love Story as a soundtrack but maybe someday. 

He went outside yesterday, and it was nice. He thought that he couldn’t do that anymore. Maybe he will be loved too. Love doesn’t necessarily requires words, right? Or well, maybe it will be like with Chanhee. He can talk to him. He will sure can talk to his soulmate, whoever he will turn out to be. 

But as he said, he doesn’t want to think about it. He wants to dance, until he will be too tired, and he wants to be able to sing the high note in I knew you were trouble without his voice breaking. 

He also wants to learn how to ride a bike. He felt safer on Chanhee’s bike, so maybe the thing is that he needs to have one. With a bike you can go fast and it’s more unlikely to be stopped by people that want to speak to you. Besides that, Chanhee complained a lot about him not being able to ride a bike and Seokwoo hates not being the best in everything, so he will learn it as fast as possible. 

Maybe he will cross paths with Chanhee, someday. He’ll tell him he can ride a bike and Chanhee will say that he is not impressed because he was never impressed no matter what talent Seokwoo promptly showed him. He’ll maybe tell him that he listened to Taylor Swift. He’ll maybe even ask him what is his favourite album. Probably Reputation. 

But he doesn’t plan to see him soon. He has a lot going on at the moment. 

The few weeks that followed were uneventful on Chanhee’s front. They have never even once seen each other. Seokwoo could hear him sometimes playing the piano, always the same song, humming along some words but Seokwoo couldn’t quite hear them, since he sang so softly. 

But Seokwoo did a lot of things by himself.

He is still having so much trouble with people. He ended up keeping his phone turned off for days, because replying to people was just too much. Going to get groceries or doing his laundry was unbelievably hard, he started doing it at three in the morning, just to be sure that no one will speak to him. 

His brother called him once, he texted him that he was busy doing schoolwork then the cried himself to sleep because he knows that his brother knows that something is off and he is probably hating him for that and thankfully he fell asleep before the voice in his head could tell him all over again how horrible he was. 

Therapy was even worse than everything mentioned before. It was so painful and every time he went to his therapist he just sat in silence, unable to speak, to move, to do anything. He always cried after, he once couldn’t even make it until home and he cried in the middle of the street because he can’t even get better, he can’t even show his therapist that he has a problem, because he feels like dying but his body refuses to show it, he gasps for air but he sits in silence like he is fine, because he isn’t allowed to do anything. He isn’t allowed to get help. Then he collapses when he is out, when no one can help him and everyone can hurt him. 

But he keeps going. He doesn’t know why, maybe Chanhee’s insistence got in his head or something, and even if he hates going there with every inch of his being, he keeps doing so. He spends all the week dreading his appointment, even more than getting groceries, but he goes anyway. 

He hates it. He spends the rest of the day, when he makes it home after therapy, trying to be okay again and of course he isn’t able to. He just lays in his bed, hugging his teddy bear, listening to Taylor Swift. Sometimes he listens to Chanhee playing the piano in his house, and he thinks of their night together and he hates himself even more, because he felt good and he didn’t deserve it, he felt good and now he can’t anymore. 

He never felt like he felt with him. 

He tried, though, on good days. He learned to ride a bike in his apartment, then he perfected his technique by going on bike rides in the middle of the night, when no one was around. 

The first time he went out he went to the same spot he went with Chanhee. He almost froze since his coat wasn’t warm a enough - as Chanhee said - and he forgot to wear gloves - as Chanhee suggested to -. He wasn’t really able to ignore the feeling like the other night and even watching the river under the streetlights wasn’t the same. He didn’t feel safe at all, or free. He was constantly afraid of meeting someone, his phone vibrated in his pocket and he almost threw it in the river because he just couldn’t deal with that. 

But still, it was something. He went out, and he managed to survive. Every time he does, it’s like a big win, even if he knows that the battle is just postponed: sooner or later he will meet someone he knows and he will break down and everything will be ruined. And so every time it becomes a bit harder, since he knows he is one time closer to ruin.

He bought a padded jacket, and gloves, and he came back. The bad feeling was still there. He tried to forget it listening to Taylor Swift on the way home, and it didn’t really worked. 

It’s early in the morning, like, super early. Around half past four on a thursday night and no one thankfully is around. He is sad. 

How can he just not be able to feel good? He thought that was the thing, the thing he has that makes hard for him to speak to people, that was keeping him from being happy or relaxed. Even when he is home alone and his favorite drama is playing he can still feel the voice in the back of his mind, saying he is not safe. Saying that someone will walk in and ruin everything, or he will do that himself. 

But then he went on a bike ride with an almost stranger he doesn’t even like or sometimes tolerates, and he felt good, like, really good, because he thought he was able to do things again, maybe not all things but some things, like watching Han river at night, like nothing happened. 

And he’s longing for that feeling, but he can’t feel it, no matter how hard he tries. Maybe it was because it was the first time, then the magic wore off or something like that. He shouldn’t be sad. The magic always leaves, from things, from relationships, to people. 

He parks his bike in front of his apartment building, next to Chanhee’s one. Of course no one is there, it is so early in the morning, but he still waits for a second, looking at Chanhee’s bike, like he is waiting for him. But he will be probably be sleeping, so it’s pointless. 

He puts his hands in his pockets, that don’t feel as warm as Chanhee’s ones, he keeps his head low and he is about to walk home but then he sees someone going out from the building. Someone with hideous pink hair. 

His hands drop off his pockets. 

“Hi!” says Chanhee lively. 

He is dressed with shorts and a sweatshirt, too light for the cold winter hair, but he is wearing running shoes so he is probably out for a run. 

Seokwoo waves at him. 

He can’t speak, but not because his throat is closing, not because he feels the familiar grip ok his stomach, but because he doesn’t know what to say. How much he can say. He should probably say nothing. Chanhee will pass and they will never see each other again. 

Chanhee, though, seems to not really care about him. He puts his airpods on, he ties his shoes and he starts walking. 

Seokwoo feel his heart ache, for no reason at all. Chanhee is out for a run. He doesn’t care about his crazy neighbour who can’t speak to people. And Seokwoo doesn’t care about him too, about his useless solution to not have people in his life in order to feel better. Really, he doesn’t care. 

But when Chanhee is so close that he can smell his perfume, something peachy, maybe it’s his bodywash, he has to close his eyes because he feels like crying. Meeting him is exactly the cherry on top of his unbelievable shitty night, he doesn’t know why but it is. 

But then he stops. 

“I see you learned how to ride a bike.” says Chanhee’s voice and he is so close that Seokwoo can almost feel the warmth of his breath. 

He opens his eyes. 

Chanhee is there, close, but he always stands close to him since he said that he doesn’t mind that, a hand on the handlebar of his bike, and he is smiling. He looks tired, maybe he is out for a run since he couldn’t sleep, his hair are tied in a ponytail but half of it is sliding off since it’s too short. Also, his natural black hair started to grow back so the top of his head is pitch black. The pink on the length is also fading to a very light and pastel tone. His hair are even more hideous than usual. 

Seokwoo feels the corners of his mouth curve upwards at the thought. 

“I told you, I am good at everything.” he replies. 

“You are good at singing too. I heard your Taylor Swift concerts.” 

Seokwoo blushes hard. Of course he can hear him, Seokwoo himself can hear Chanhee when he plays the piano, but it has somehow never occurred to him until now. No one of the neighbours of Chanhee himself complained. 

“I got carried away.”’he says, trying to hide his burning cheeks with his hands. 

“I am not complaining. I mean, you play a lot Fearless and 1989 and almost never evermore but we can live with that.” says jokingly Chanhee. 

“Is evermore your favorite album?” Seokwoo find himself asking. 

“Yeah. You should revaluate it. It may be calmer but the lyrics are the best she’s ever written.”

Chanhee laughs a little, covering his mouth with his hand. 

“It’s so weird, I mean, you look so stiff and snobbish all “I am a med student I play piano and I listen only to classical music” and then you are in your room singing along to he songs I used to listen in middle school. And you bought a padded jacket and gloves! You look like a giant snowman.” he says. 

Seokwoo hates him a little. 

“Well, your hair looks like, super horrible, your roots are definitely in need of a touch up and ...” 

“Why are you so obsessed with my hair? I mean, every single time we speak you say something about that, do you have like, a kink or something?” asks Chanhee. 

“I always say it’s hideous.” 

“Yeah but you can’t stop thinking about it” replies Chanhee with a smirk and Seokwoo wants to punch him in the face. 

How come that his best memory since a while it’s with this fucking idiot? How come he thought he will miss him? He wants to punch him in the face. 

“It’s because it is beyond ugly.” 

“Sure. Whatever I ... fuck.” 

Chanhee is looking down, and Seokwoo thinks he is looking at is shoes and he will probably complain about how much they aren’t fit for biking, even if they are plain tennis shoes, but then Chanhee sits down and starts looking at his bike’s tire. 

It is totally deflated and Chanhee looks totally annoyed.

“What?” asks Seokwoo, “you can get it fixed tomorrow, I mean, today. In a few hours.”

Chanhee still looks pissed. 

“I needed that in the morning, and if I take that to the shop to be fixed they’ll usually take at least half a day.” he says, gloomily. 

And then Seokwoo speaks, saying something he doesn’t want to say, saying something he can’t believe he is saying. Lately he learnt not to trust his brain, since it plays tricks on him, but this never happened. He usually can’t talk, he doesn’t like, say bullshit. 

“If ... if you want, I can take you. I mean, I have a bike and we rode together last time so it is like ... even?” 

If Seokwoo can’t believe that he just said that, Chanhee looks at him like he is on drugs or something.

“I... I need to go shopping. For like, clothes and stuff. I’m going to Dongdaemun, there will be like, tons of people.” he says, stuttering a bit. 

“I don’t mind! I don’t mind people, you know, I only mind people that I know or people that want to talk to me. I don’t think anyone I know will go shopping on a Friday morning. There’s class” he says too quickly and in a high pitched voice that it isn’t like him. 

“I need to go in multiple shops. Trying on things.” replies Chanhee. 

“I don’t mind.” 

Seokwoo doesn’t know why he feels the desperate need to be with him for the day. He kinda hates it, because it doesn’t make sense and he doesn’t even like Chanhee. They conversation is mainly Chanhee making him feel like an idiot, Chanhee is not even pretty to look at, so why? 

Maybe because Chanhee is the only person he can talk to. He literally doesn’t speak for days, besides when he explains what he studied to his teddy bear, he has no one that he feels comfortable with too. He isn’t even comfortable with Chanhee but like, he doesn’t break down or feels like he is suffocating with him, which makes him the only person he can really be with. 

So maybe it’s that: he misses people. He dreads everyone, even his own family, even his twin brother, and he has spent every single second of his life with him since he womb, but Chanhee is not that bad. 

Maybe it’s because Chanhee had seen him at his worst already. Maybe it’s because Chanhee felt that too and he told him when he thought he was the only one in the world feeling like this. 

The fact is, Chanhee is his only option now. And he literally needs to be with him for the morning, his body needs it, like water, air, anything like this. 

“You sure you won’t break down? Like, we can’t really go back home in a second.”’asks Chanhee. 

Of course Seokwoo isn’t sure. He isn’t really lucky since he got to Seoul and there still is a small chance to meet someone or to have someone asking you something and him absolutely losing it. But he needs to go with him, and the need is strong. Not stronger than the fear, because he is indeed terrified: Chanhee is right, he won’t have anywhere to hide and try to get his sanity back. 

But he needs it. 

It’s like when he forces himself to get the groceries, or get his laundry done: he needs to go and he is terrified but he does anyway. Even if it feels completely different. 

“I’m positive.” he replies. 

“I want to go really early. Eight am. You won’t really have the time to sleep much and ...” 

“It’s fine. I usually sleep in the afternoon.” replies Seokwoo. 

It’s not a lie. He likes the night more. He uses the night to go on his bike and get his groceries and things like that, so he started sleeping on the afternoon. Mornings are usually used to study or to have a breakdown after he went out. Once a week he has therapy in the morning as well. 

“Then see you at eight?” asks Chanhee, visibly confused. 

“Sure.” 

Seokwoo is even more confused than him about what happened. 

He is there, though, at five to eight, with a new and freshly ironed shirt under his padded jacket, a his best pair of black trousers and his fanciest tennis shoes. He also got gloves in his pocket and he put on a scarf. He usually doesn’t really get cold since he usually wears a turtleneck under his shirts but Chanhee has always sweatshirts and hoodies on, he’ll maybe need that. 

He doesn’t even need to wait, Chanhee is going out the second he got in front of his door. 

Like Seokwoo thought, he is wearing a sweatshirt under his padded jacket and also for the first time, he is wearing light wash jeans with cuffs instead of sweatpants. He has converse under it. 

His hair is undone too, and that’s a first time for Seokwoo, since he has always seen him with at least half of his hair up. He looks ... different. 

Chanhee is manly. He has pink hair and he is tiny compared to Seokwoo but his features are sharp and his body is strong and muscular. He doesn’t even look softer with his hair down, he just looks ... different. His hair color is hideous as it was a few hours ago, but Seokwoo almost wants to touch it. It seems so nice. 

Chanhee’s face, though, looks worn out. His eyes are puffy and the blue under them looks like it has intensified in the few hours they spent apart. His cheeks are pink though, like he’s a child. 

“Hi.” he says, smiling. 

Seokwoo stopped praying a long time ago. It doesn’t really work so he just quoted. It is useless relying on something and hoping for something if your expectations are always disappointed. But right now he prays, as hard as he can, that everything will go well. That he will be able to just be, next to Chanhee, for the morning. But maybe even that it’s too much to ask. He doesn’t really trust himself those days.

Seokwoo is there again, sitting behind Chanhee but now on his own bike, cheek pressed on his back, hands in Chanhee’s pocket (he may have accidentally lost his gloves somewhere since he couldn’t find them in his pockets) like he suggested and cold wind on his face. 

To be honest, he really wanted to give Chanhee a ride. But he didn’t think that biking with someone behind you when you are just a beginner can be tricky. He is good but he needs practice, especially when it comes to have someone, Chanhee, hugging him from behind and judging him. After they almost fell twice Chanhee said he’ll go on the bike and Seokwoo will sit at the back. He complained a lot, since the seat is too tall for him and he can barely touch the ground while he is on it but in the end he didn’t even lower it. 

And so they are going to Dongdaemun and Seokwoo is scared to death. But he is trying not to think about that, he is trying to focus on the fact that he is finally able to go out like the other time at Han river.

But it doesn’t feel like the other time. It doesn’t even feel like when he was alone, it feels so scary, but not too much. It’s like jumping from a cliff. He did once, and he felt similar: he was scared to death, but Juho was there waiting for him, since he jumped earlier, and then he did it and it wasn’t that bad. It was good, when he got in the water and Juho hugged him laughing, and he almost forgot the fear he felt before. 

He doesn’t know why he is thinking about that now. It hurts too, since he doesn’t like to think about his twin. Juho will be so disappointed in him if he knew. They shared everything, from struggles to heartbreaks, and now Seokwoo is always lying to him. He had never had problems sharing anything to him, not even the fact that he kissed a boy in middle school and he hasn’t really stopped kissing guys since then. Juho was the first to know and the first one to accept the fact he is gay, he has never once judged him. But now Seokwoo just can’t. 

He can only hug Chanhee’s back, like it is the only thing that keeps him grounded, and focus on the cold air on his face. He likes it. It’s too strong when he is on the bike, but when it’s Chanhee in front of him it’s perfect, his cheek on his back, to keep him warm. 

When they stop Seokwoo doesn’t want to let go. He is suddenly afraid. 

He doesn’t go out in the morning except for going to his therapist and it is actually really close by his home, he can get there fast and he always schedules his session when it’s really early in the morning. He had never been out and about since he started feeling bad, and of course he has never been to this part of the city. 

He starts feeling his throat closing getting off the bike, and he feels like crying because he told Chanhee he will be fine but in the end he isn’t. He is already feeling bad, seeing all those people around them chatting and laughing. 

He somehow forgot that people are, like, a lot. He forgot how lonely it can be seeing everyone being fine and happy around you, while you are feeling so down and so broken. And his mind starts spinning, the familiar trail of thoughts that he learnt to know by heart starts playing in his head like an old movie. And he is not there anymore, the streets and the people all disappear, and it’s like he is alone in a cinema, watching in the big screen every single reason why he should stop existing. He isn’t normal. He isn’t like the people around him. They’ll know he is broken and weird and they will all look at him and they’ll know. 

He feels like drowning. 

And then someone pulls him up from the water. 

He is back to reality, a tiny hand that is grabbing his arm steadily, a familiar and warm hand. 

“Hey. Do you want to go back? It’s okay, I don’t mind. I’ll take you back.” 

Seokwoo can’t really reply. 

“Don’t worry. Come on, hop on the bike and ...” 

Chanhee doesn’t stop grabbing his arm but he also try to take his bike and he is clearly uncomfortable but he doesn’t let go. 

Seokwoo is grateful for that. 

The fact is, Chanhee knows. He had always knew, before they even spoke to each other. He had known seeing him in the middle of the street with his friend, he had known in his house, when Seokwoo thought he will be fixed in no time, he had known on the Han river, when he brought him there just to show him that he could still do something like this. 

Seokwoo doesn’t really know Chanhee. They aren’t friends and they probably won’t ever be, he doesn’t even like him but he is drawn to him somehow. Maybe Chanhee is right and it‘s like the House MD episode and Seokwoo is just very broken and he needs someone, but he thinks now it’s beyond that. 

It’s something else. 

It’s the fact he doesn’t really have to speak with Chanhee, they don’t need words. They needed once, when there was a wall separating them and Chanhee listened to Paramore, they stopped since then. 

When they met properly, Seokwoo couldn’t speak, but Chanhee understood everything he was screaming silently. The fact is, Seokwoo can probably spend the entire time not speaking to him and Chanhee will still understand everything. He just does. It’s not because they are close, maybe it’s because they have similar issues or something but Chanhee is the first person that doesn’t need Seokwoo speaking to him. He doesn’t need anything to him and he doesn’t even ask anything. He just understands. And he keeps him there, with his hands, with his words, until Seokwoo feels better and then he wants to reply, because he is annoying and he wants to brag but he always end up being roasted. 

He speaks to him because he is the only person that doesn’t require him to do so. 

So Seokwoo can now speak to him, freely, his voice trembling since he isn’t really fine but he can speak. Chanhee is there, and he gets him. 

“No. I want to stay. I am afraid but I want to stay. Please.” he says. 

He is not sure he will make it. He is not sure is mind won’t play any more tricks on him, but he feels like he can handle it, if something keeps him from getting lost in his thoughts. 

“You sure?” asks Chanhee, and he stops grabbing his arm. 

Seokwoo feels a weight drop on his chest but he tries his best to not be affected by it. He wants to stay. He doesn’t want to lock himself in again, waiting for this to pass. He doesn’t want to give in yet. He wants to go back to the night at the Han river, when everything felt good. He wants to feel like that again, because now he knows he is able to. He wants to be free again. 

And he is willing to fight. 

He looks at people around him, and he feels the sadly familiar grip in his stomach tighten. 

Well, maybe. 

He nods anyways. 

Chanhee looks at him like he is thinking about it, like he is not sure he can fully trust Seokwoo’s judgment now, but like Seokwoo said, he gets him. So he doesn’t say anything, he just grabs Seokwoo’s wrist like he did the first time they met and he starts walking. He is saying something about a shop he needs to go to, he needs sweatpants or something, but Seokwoo can’t fully concentrate on the conversation. 

He is walking in the middle of a road, people are around him, and he is walking with Chanhee. They probably look a little funny since Chanhee is walking almost dragging Seokwoo behind him, and Seokwoo is still scared, but it’s not like, pure terror. It‘s manageable. The grip in his stomach is still there, but it hasn’t tightened anymore. He can’t really get lost in his thoughts, too. Chanhee’s hand on his wrist is keeping him grounded. 

It quickly start to ache though, Chanhee is gripping his wrist hard and he feels better enough to complain. 

“You’re killing my wrist.” 

“Sorry, I mean I didn’t realise that I was doing that ...” replies Chanhee and he tries to free it and put his hand in his pocket. 

It takes just a look from Seokwoo, who hasn’t even realised himself what he wants, for Chanhee to change his mind. He stops before even reaching his pocket, leaving his hand for a second hanging awkwardly mid air. Then it goes back, but not on Seokwoo’s wrist. He takes his hand, like they are children in primary school. 

And everything is a bit better.

It’s better so Seokwoo can breathe a bit again, and he can joke about it, like he isn’t hyper aware of his hand and Chanhee’s one touching, and Chanhee’s so small in Seokwoo’s that it feels they almost disappear. 

“It feels like we are still in grade school. Well, you surely feel like it, since your hand is so ...” 

Seokwoo can’t finish the sentence, because Chanhee moves his hand, he rotates it a bit and he intertwines  
his fingers with Seokwoo’s.

For a while the whole world disappear. It’s not because Seokwoo is so lost in his thoughts like it usually happens, it’s just because everything feels not relevant for a second. It’s just a second, then Seokwoo goes back to the road full of people. 

“So, better? I never thought you’d be so annoying that you have to complain even about this.” says Chanhee.

It’s better. Not only the hand holding thing, which is definitely more comfortable, but also the “thing” Seokwoo has. He is scared, still, but not terrified. He is in the middle of a crowded street, he can’t be fine. Not now. But he can go on. 

He tightens his grip around Chanhee‘s hand, he takes a deep breath and he starts walking again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m sorry if i need a lot of time to update but i’m back to work full time and not at home anymore :(


	6. 0.5

It was hard. 

Seokwoo waited outside the first shop Chanhee got into, but he felt immediately worse. It may sound stupid, but having Chanhee’s hand holding his own made him better, but he of course couldn’t do that being in the shop, so Seokwoo got worse. He started concentrating on people’s faces, afraid to recognise someone and even more afraid that someone will recognise him. He was also afraid of people going around with handouts, because they may talk to him, and he tried his best to calm himself down, he tried to distract himself watching a video on Naver, but he got a sms notification from his dad and he had to put his phone back before breaking down. 

Thankfully Chanhee got back the exact moment he did so, and first thing he took back his hand in his own. Intertwining the fingers immediately this time. Seokwoo felt a bit better. 

There is this thing, when Chanhee holds his hand: he can’t go too deep in his thoughts. He has to focus at least a little on the tiny hand holding his own, because it’s warm and firm and his a bit too long nails scrape a little on his hand in the most delicate way. He can’t get lost in his mind, he can’t get lost in the crowd, he is with him. And Chanhee is not letting him go. 

They went to more shops, this time together. They didn’t really speak to each other, Chanhee didn’t ask Seokwoo opinions on what he is buying and Seokwoo didn’t give him any. He just stayed with him, hand in his, because Chanhee almost never let go of it, going things with one hand and being a little troubled by it when he had to take his card off his wallet. 

People tried to speak with Seokwoo twice. Every time Chanhee spoke to them before they could even finish the sentence, saying that they were not interested in whatever they were selling. He came out a bit rude but it worked, people left them alone. 

Seokwoo felt better. Not good, there were still people around and Chanhee attracted more than a few glances, probably because of his hair. Seokwoo heard someone saying the word “idol” but of course Chanhee isn’t one. He has just a terrible taste in hair. But it wasn’t as bad as he thought at first: he feels safer, with him. He knows and he avoids unnecessary stress for him by replying to everyone who wants to talk to him, he lets him concentrate about something who isn’t people around him and overall it’s just great having someone there ready to help him whenever he needs. 

When they are almost done, Seokwoo can almost tell everything is well. He was also able to buy something for himself: a bucket hat and some new pyjamas since he pretty much lives in those. Chanhee paid for him using his card. He didn’t even had to ask, Chanhee saw him looking at the things in the shop and said that, it Seokwoo wanted, he could buy those for him. Seokwoo gave him his card and they were done. 

Seokwoo missed this. He always liked shopping, when he was still with Inseong they loved doing it on saturdays and then they always went to a restaurant to have a proper date. Seokwoo always picked the nicest ones carefully, looking though social media to find the best romantic spots. 

Now of course everything is different. Even hand holding with Chanhee, besides the obvious reasons, is different. Seokwoo used to be very clingy to Inseong, grabbing his arm proudly while walking in the streets. He also used to complain a lot when Inseong forgot to hold his hand, because he liked when Inseong was kissing his frown away. 

Chanhee holds his hand like a classmate in primary school, always keeping his distance. Seokwoo doesn’t feel any need to cling onto him too. But Chanhee almost never let’s go and first thing he does when he finish doing whatever requires two hands is to going back taking Seokwoo’s hand. 

Inseong used to be chatty and loud, he used to try on a million things and buying like two, Chanhee doesn’t try on anything except shoes and he goes straight to paying, and he doesn’t say anything, just “I need to go there” or “can you help me find the black one” when he is looking for something.

Also, Seokwoo lived in a city smaller than Seoul, so everything is big, and new. Holding Chanhee’s hand he could enjoy the city, too. He was still scared, but not as much: he was able to look around, past people, he was able to see the tall buildings and the light blue sky, the sparkly windows of the shops around him, and it was something. He can’t believe he could make it there. Not in a million years he would have thought to be able to be there with the weight on his chest being bearable. 

He gave up on many things, he realised, when he got “sick” or whatever he has. He just thought he wouldn’t be able to do certain things anymore, he wouldn’t even like doing them anymore. 

He doesn’t know if he likes being here, but he doesn’t hate it. And that’s definitely more than he expected.

“You know” is saying Chanhee, “a place full of people is the best place to be anonymous. I used to be scared of crowds but now I kinda like them. No one really notices me. If you don’t want people to find you the best place to hide is a crowd. And also, people doesn’t really look at me that much.” 

Seokwoo never saw it that way. He is hyper aware of people around him usually and he always thinks that they are watching him and they know about his problem. But Chanhee is almost right: almost no one is concerned with the two boys walking hand in hand in the most non romantic way possible. Everyone is concerned with their own situation: with their friends, partner, or phone. 

“Someone does. Your hair stand out a lot. Why did you dyed it, if you didn’t want to be noticed?” asks Seokwoo. 

“I am more noticeable with black hair, trust me. Besides that, they notice the hair, not me. And I really like pink.” he replies. 

“It’s too long too. You should chop it off a bit.” 

“So are your legs but I am not here telling you to chop them.” says dryly Chanhee, turning around a bit to look Seokwoo in the eyes. 

Seokwoo seriously thinks about hitting his face with his free hand. How come Chanhee has a reply to everything he says? 

“You are missing the point. My long legs are a part of my charm. Everyone thinks that I’m handsome because I am so tall and well proportioned. Your long hair looks just too long.” he explains to him. 

“Unlike you, I don’t need approval on the way I look. The only person I care about is me.” 

“Girls look at you sometimes. They said you look like an idol, because of the hair.” says Seokwoo. 

He is always aware of people around them. He can’t even think about not to be concerned about people around them. And they go around pretty unnoticed but Chanhee sometimes doesn’t. There is a part of Seokwoo who is jealous of him: people used to notice him, in the hallways or even in the streets. He is tall and handsome, he attracts looks usually. Now he walks with his shoulders hunched and a mask that covers all of his face. He has a hat too, like he is really and idol in disguise. 

But he isn’t. He is just a sad young man that needs to hold an almost stranger hand to be able to walk around. 

Chanhee wears a mask too, probably because his face doesn’t really look great and he is clearly sleep deprived - the mask can’f cover his dark circles though - but he walks with his back straight, and a certain quid in his eyes that makes him look almost fascinating. Seokwoo next to him, even if he is all dressed up, looks like a ghost. 

“They ... nevermind. Want a coffee? I’m paying.” he says, for a second looking gloomy. Well, gloomier than usual. 

“I can’t” replies Seokwoo. 

He had never had coffee since the things started. He can’t, unless it’s delivered to his apartment but he doesn’t really like to order in: delivery people always change and he can’t really get his food without opening the door. So he just cooks for himself and if he wants some fancy coffee he just googled the recipe and tries to make it himself. 

“Just tell me what you like, I’m ordering it for you and picking it up as well. I’ll be your voice. It will be fine, you won’t have to talk to anyone.” says Chanhee, and Seokwoo is speechless. 

He just has never thought about that possibility. Having coffee again. He used to have it a lot back home, usually after school with Juho or with his friends or the both of them. He used to laugh with them, and life was so easy back then. They talked about school and classmates and girls and boys and everyone had fun. 

It felt like a different life. A different Seokwoo. 

There was once a popular Seokwoo, who had a lot of friends, a boyfriend, then beat grades in his whole school, and there is now just Seokwoo, who can’t even get himself coffee. 

“Come on, please, I didn’t sleep so I am in desperately need of a coffee. We’ll get one on the go. Please.” 

“It‘a okay. It’s just ... stuff. I’m okay with coffee.” replies Seokwoo.

He really is. It’s being himself, who he isn’t okay with. 

Coffee turned out to be nice. He got his usual Iced Americano and Chanhee got a Caramel Macchiato, and they’re having them sitting in a nice spot. There’s something comforting in being able to have coffee again, even if Seokwoo isn’t particularly fond of Iced Americano, even if it is his usual order: every guy in school got Iced Americano.

It is a little step. He can get coffee. He can be almost normal, sitting with Chanhee in a coffee shop like they are two friends out and about. He is satisfied with this and his Iced americano. 

He takes a sip, frowning a bit because it tastes bitter. 

“You don’t like it.” says Chanhee. It‘s not a question. 

Seokwoo doesn’t say anything. Of course he likes it, he choose it himself and he told Chanhee precisely how he wanted it. It’s his usual order. It’s just a bit sour, but as he states before, everyone in school used to have it and he didn’t want to be different. He liked to be different, but like, smarter, better, not plain different. He had enough of it with all of the gay thing. 

Not that anyone really treated him differently. In school no one knew except Juho, a guy in his football team knew too since they kissed a few times, but he kept it well hidden even when he was with Inseong: he is older and he is in university. So the only people that know are Juho, his parents - and they are very supportive - and the people Seokwoo kissed or slept with. 

“Well, I used to have it all the time in high school, so ...” he replies. 

“And you don’t like it.” replies Chanhee. 

“Everyone had it, there was no point being different. I like to stand out for my merits not for things like this.” 

“So you are insecure. Seokwoo, it’s coffee. No one will care if you like a sweeter one. The girls will still think you are hot.” he says and then he switches their drinks, “Try mine, it’s sweet. If you don’t like it, I’ll get you another one.” 

Seokwoo tries it. He likes it. It’s sweet and tastes like salted caramel more than coffee. 

“It’s good. Thanks.” he says, blushing a bit. 

“You look nicer without a disgusted face everytime you take a sip. Girls will like this more than you ...” 

“I don’t care about girls.” corrects him Seokwoo. 

He doesn’t really come out to people, but he felt the need to tell Chanhee. He doesn’t want to impress girls or boys. He doesn’t look for a lover or a hookup usually. He just wants to be the best, someone people will look up to and admire. Being gay sometimes feels in the way, sometimes doesn’t, but he knows it isn’t his fault. He knows that being gay is okay, and it’s society that makes you believe it isn’t. Juho told him a billion times. 

“You do. Why on heart you will make all that “i’m a med student and i am the best in the world and ...”” 

“I’m gay. I just like to live the fullest and ace difficult things.” replies Seokwoo. 

Chanhee looks surprised but only for a couple of seconds. 

“I didn’t see that coming. Whatever. So you are in med school because you like difficult things?” 

Seokwoo expected more surprise but in a certain way this is okay. 

“Yes. Everyone was so impressed when I got in and ...” 

“Are you doing all this for other people? I mean, you always tell that “people think that” but what do you think? What do you like? Do you like what you are doing? Does it make you happy?” 

Seokwoo, for the first time in his life, can’t understand the question. Like what he is doing? What does even mean? He wants to have a wonderful life that people can be jealous about and be happy. He always thought he will be happy when he’ll be head of plastic surgery somewhere and married to a nice man. He can’t be happy now, he hasn’t achieved his goals yet. 

“What?” 

“I do music because I like it. It’s literally the only thing that keeps me alive. I need to do music. I love music. I can’t even imagine myself without it, without writing songs. Sometimes happened and it was ... not good. Do you feel the same about medicine?” 

Seokwoo still can’t understand. 

“It’s about passion. Are you passionate about it? You look pretty passionate about people’s opinion rather than medicine, but maybe it’s just the way you speak.” 

Seokwoo realises he isn’t. He never cared about medicine, he always cared about the fact that med school was the hardest university he could choose. He cared more to impress people, to be the best, than medicine. Same thing goes for piano and football, he played to win, competitions and matches, and he almost always did. Just once some piano prodigy got first place, but it was a little guy who came just for fun that could play any song by listening to it once. Seokwoo felt terrible after that, even if he was just seven. He hated not being the best. Being the best it is all he was. 

“I don’t know.” he says, “maybe I am not really a passionated person.” 

“I just think you don’t know. Maybe you just have to do something you actually like instead of what people like for you.” 

“But people ...” 

“People are useless.” replies Chanhee. 

Seokwoo starts to think about something he likes. He can’t think of nothing except Taylor Swift and once Inseong. 

He was actually passionate about him. He was his first love, and he was so proud of him. He walked with him so happy about being the one who was able to hold his hand, he felt bitterly in his stomach every time they kissed, he spent an awful lot of time thinking about him too. 

Sad thing everything ended. 

“Have you ever been in love?” he asks Chanhee out of the blue, following his trail of thoughts. 

Chanhee looks surprised since they were talking about something else but he replies anyway. 

“No. I have no intention to be in the future too. People are useless and relationships are too, too much of a bother. People leave. People lie. People are not worth it.” 

He is right. Seokwoo knows that. He was left and he left people himself. 

He wonders why Chanhee, who doesn’t want people around and hates people so much, is there with him though, buying him coffee and all that. 

“I am people. You are here with me though.” he states, looking at Chanhee, lifting an eyebrow. 

“I like doing charity sometimes” 

They came back before lunch. They both bought some instant ramen, since there is not time to really cook anything, plus Chanhee doesn’t really look like someone who cooks a lot for himself. 

Seokwoo started feeling tired, the coffee wasn’t enough to keep him awake and the day has been really tiring for his standards. He had a lot of exercise, he had a lot of stress as well because of all those people and well, he isn’t used to it. He did also a lot of thinking too, and not only overthinking about every single detail in his life, just thinking. 

Chanhee talks weird. He doesn’t care about success, he doesn’t care about being the best among people, he cares about passion and stuff. He cares about “something that makes him happy”. 

Seokwoo had never cared about happiness, not like this: he was happy being the best in everything, who cares if he isn’t happy doing the things that make him the best. He doesn’t like studying, playing the piano or playing any sport. He sometimes feels bummed he has to but he does anyway because he knows in the end he will be happy. His parents will be proud, his friends too, and Juho will jump enthusiastically around him and hug him telling everyone “this is my brother!”. 

He doesn’t really know who he is without all of this. 

A Taylor Swift fan, since it is the only thing he really does for fun. 

He doesn’t like it. 

He doesn’t really know Chanhee either, they have hung out just two times and Chanhee has given him only three informations about himself: he had the same problem Seokwoo has and he dealt with cutting off everyone from his life, he loves music so he is a music major, and he has never been in love. Seokwoo could deduce a few things, like that Chanhee is a very introverted person, and he is very confident too. He doesn’t care about the things people usually care about like grades or university, he is different and unapologetic about it. 

There is something in him. Something past the fact he is the person Seokwoo involuntarily chose as his confident, past the fact that Seokwoo needs him. He has a sort of charm, something in him that makes you look twice. It’s the way he walks, the way he moves. the way he talks. There is something in it, something cool. Something more. 

And Seokwoo knows he doesn’t have it. Because Chanhee can allow himself to be just a Taylor Swift fan, Seokwoo can’t. Seokwoo can’t be just Seokwoo, it isn’t enough. Chanhee being Chanhee ... that’s a whole different story. 

Maybe he is right. Maybe living without people around is the best. Maybe it’s the thing that makes him cool even with the hideous pink hair.

But Seokwoo can’t be without people. He can’t be without Juho, he hasn’t even know a moment in his life without him. Juho is the one he forces himself the most to reply to, the one he feels the most guilty towards. He is his brother, his twin. He can’t be without his parents too, and maybe without his friends as well. And right now he can’t even get coffee without Chanhee. He needs people. He can’t be alone. 

He wants to know more about that too. He wants to know about how Chanhee is keeping distance and how he is felling but of course Chanhee doesn’t talk about that. 

And also, they will probably never see each other again. Chanhee doesn’t want to have friends and they made no plans to meet again. 

So Seokwoo held him a bit tighter on their way back home. He tried to memorise as best as he could how it felt having his cheek pressed on Chanhee’s back, the cold wind making his face freeze. 

He knows he will miss this so bad. He dislikes Chanhee a lot as a person, he always makes him question everything he knows, but he also likes being with him. He can do things with him. He is his voice. He told him, even if he mentioned that just for a brief moment and just because he really wanted coffee. 

They got off the bike and Seokwoo secures it in the bike parking, while Chanhee stands behind him a bit awkwardly because it’s unsaid but they will both say goodbye after that and they will know they’ll never see each other again like this. Just what happened between them and their shopping trip was out of pure causality. 

Chanhee doesn’t want friends. Seokwoo doesn’t want him as friend. But he is still bummed, and he knows he will miss whatever they had. A weird partnership, something he never had before because he was usually liked and praised by everyone. Chanhee doesn’t do that. Chanhee doesn’t admire him at all but he stays. He puts up with him, he had seen him at his lowest and he helped him. He is always there, in their moments together. He always keeps an eye out for him and Seokwoo realises no one has ever done something like this: he was the one taking care of others, except with his parents. 

Seokwoo finishes to lock his bike to the bike parking. 

“So, bye then.” says Chanhee, waving at him. 

Seokwoo waves too. He would really like to talk to him, to tell everything he is thinking now, because in his brain there are a billion questions. Why does Chanhee always agrees to help him? Why he puts up with him even if he doesn’t want to be his friend. What does he want? 

He can’t of course, because he can speak to Chanhee but it’s not like he can tell him anything. 

So he watches him taking step after step until he reaches the building’s door, hoping that he will turn around. Hoping that he can say something so everything won’t end up like this. 

Of course, he doesn’t. 

More weeks pass, and everything in Seokwoo’s life starts falling apart even more. 

His family is pressuring him to go back home when Juho will have a few days off and of course he can’t. He made up a million excuses but they keep insisting and Seokwoo keeps ignoring his phone and switching it off for days in order to maintain at least a bit of his mental health. 

School started giving him trouble as well: as a med student he has to do lab hours and of course he can’t, since he won’t be able to survive in a room full of people that will surely speak to him, so he is making up excuses for it as well, but he knows it won’t work for long. 

He is studying almost every day like crazy, being too stressed to really learn anything and this is new to him, because he always used studying as a stress relief. He can’t do that anymore since studying has become a source of stress as well. 

He feels like he can’t hide anymore. He can try to fake it, he can try to pretend that everything is okay but this act will have a very short life span. He is doomed. He can’t hide from his fears and his insecurities, they are right there, they are everywhere, when he studies, when he eats, when he sleeps, when he listens to Taylor Swift. And they are ready to eat him alive. 

Therapy isn’t going well too. He doesn’t speak and he only feels terrible after. His therapist told him that if he refused to communicate - he tried to make him write, draw, everything, but Seokwoo stayed still on tue couch, not lifting even a finger - therapy would have been useless so he suggested him to find another doctor. 

Seokwoo doesn’t know why but he keeps going, like it will change something. Like it will matter to anyone that he is seeing a therapist and that he isn’t even able to get help. 

He hasn’t spoke to Chanhee too. Chanhee started going out a lot, especially at night, and their interactions are limited to Seokwoo hearing him playing the piano sometimes, always the same song. Seokwoo hasn’t even seen him, not even once. 

He stopped going out except for therapy. He does his laundry in the sink, he orders his groceries online and he just stopped eating things that aren’t delivered to his door. And this week would also be his last therapy session since he doesn’t speak and his therapist told him he has to find someone else because he isn’t the right one for him. 

But Seokwoo’s the problem. Seokwoo who can’t do anything right. Seokwoo who can’t speak. Seokwoo who can’t go out. Seokwoo who thought that being able to go to the Han river and to go shopping meant something but it didn’t because he is even worse. 

He just wants to be saved. He just wants that Chanhee will magically appear like the first time he saw him and just make him better. He is always better with him. 

But he doesn’t. He just plays the piano sometimes, the same song all over again, and Seokwoo started to hate it since it reminds him only that they will never see each other again, and he even failed on that. He failed to choose the person to open up to, even if he did it irrationally, because Chanhee won’t save him, Chanhee doesn’t want anyone in his life, and he is screwed. 

He put so much effort, so much time and energy, just to see everything fail so spectacularly. 

The voice in his head is getting louder and louder. It keeps saying to him that it is his only friend, the only one that will stay forever, like a warm blanket under him. That he doesn’t have to get out of bed, because no one will care anyways. That he has to reply to people on the phone and feel bad after because he deserves it. He has to be punished because he is sick and wrong and he deserves to feel bad. 

So he lays in bed since days, unable to move, to get dressed, to do anything but stare at his phone. The voice made him download every sns app again and it is forcing him to be there 24/7 looking at how perfect are other people’s lives and how shitty is his own. 

There is no comfort left for him. No one will help him. 

But when someone knocks the door, he still hopes. Maybe it’s Chanhee. Maybe he changed his mind, maybe he is here and he will help him. 

But Seokwoo is out of luck. 

“Ttegu?” says a familiar voice and his heart skips a beat, because only three people in the world call him like this and two of them are his parents. 

The third is one of the people Seokwoo dreads the most right now, someone that can never know about how he is nowadays. Someone he used to share everything with. His better half, his soulmate, his brother. 

Juho.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this is a sad mess, i am stressed for work and all of my stress goes into this story ...


	7. 0.6

Once in elementary school a classmate asked Seokwoo if he would have liked to be an only child. Seokwoo screamed “NO!”. 

The fact is, Seokwoo loves having a twin even if his twin is usually the one everyone likes more. It’s okay because he likes Juho too. He is the one who likes him the most, actually. 

He was happy to be able to get into SNU but he was also sad since that meant no more living with him. Juho would also be training in an agency and living in a dorm, so that will be inevitable: they are on a different path. 

And that was okay for them. They promised to see each other as often as they could, to call each other and all that. Seokwoo couldn’t keep his promise.   
Seokwoo knows he has to pretend to not be home. He hates himself for that too. 

And now he just wants to disappear, muffling his crying with a pillow, because he has to pretend he is not home. He turns his phone off, knowing that he will call. He surely is surprised since Seokwoo tells him all the time that he can’t go out because he is busy studying, but right now he is - well, pretends to be - out. 

He feels horrible. 

He feels broken because no one who is normal has issues meeting their own brother, with whom they have a wonderful and loving relationship. No one has to pretend to be out when their loved twin knocks the door. 

He knows that he has to get a grip on himself because he is getting worse and people, Juho, will know very soon. He feels like dying even having to reply to a few text, he’d rather walk through hell than meeting his brother because he can’t talk. He doesn’t even want to. 

The fact is, Seokwoo has nothing to say. He knows that even if he will speak people won’t get it, people will say that he is crazy or that he is just a crybaby, they won’t understand. 

Not even Juho. 

Juho had a lot going on in his life. Being a trainee is not easy and he is always stressed so he complains a lot. Seokwoo sometimes tried to speak about things that bothered him but they seemed so useless compared to what he was and maybe still is going through. So he stopped talking about his problems to his brother. 

He thought maybe talking with friends will help, but they didn’t understand. He tried twice, trying to make them understand why to him everything felt to hard, but they all dismissed the thing as “fatigue” and “stress, nothing to worry about. They laughed it off and Seokwoo laughed with them, but he felt so bad after. 

Lastly, he tried to meet new people. He was new there, classes weren’t started yet so he tried to be friendly with first years like him that were already on campus. 

It was the worst decision ever: he was kind and maybe he bragged a bit about his grades and abilities so people kept asking him favours and stuff, and he felt like suffocating every time he unlocked his phone. 

So he ghosted them. 

He ghosted everyone who didn’t make him feel too guilty for disappearing, but replying even to people he loved and cared about started being too hard. 

And the idea to open the door now ... it’s just impossible. Not it. Not happening. 

And he hates himself for it. He is the worst person ever, he is damaged he is broken and he desperately wants to fix himself or better, just disappear. Because the thing that he has now lives in his chest, making it hard to breathe, in his brain, whispering to him how much he is worth nothing.

He is beyond repair. There is no hope. 

He is avoiding his favourite person in the world. He can’t face him. There is something so wrong about it that ... 

And then he hears a voice. Loud and clear. The voice who has come to him in many dark situations, a voice that is not warm or gentle, but to him is comforting. The voice he sometimes wants to shut up, because it’s telling him things that he doesn’t like and it is always not impressed, but the only one that doesn’t make him feel like dying when he hears it. 

His voice. 

It is almost ironic how he keeps being the one who saves him. He doesn’t even want to deal with people yet he is always by Seokwoo’s side, probably not even noticing. 

But there’s something about him, something about him being always at the right time, at the right moment, some hint about him being so high above the whole scene, that makes Seokwoo always safe, when he thinks everything is lost. 

Seokwoo has always thought he was a main character, if his life were a movie - and it was very close to it - he would be surely the protagonist, the hero, the one who saves the day. Maybe not as much as Juho but he will be sure at least the co protagonist. 

Turns out he isn’t, he is barely a background character, the one everyone pities but that is so irrelevant that people quickly forgets about him, and he’s even annoying. 

Chanhee is the hero, with pink hair and everything, like he’s straight out of a manga or something. He seems cold but he isn’t, he always speaks his mind and he has perfect timing. 

“Looking for Seokwoo?” Seokwoo hears him saying. 

“Yeah, who are you?” 

It’s Juho’s voice now. 

“Neighbour. I’ve seen him going out, he will probably be out all day. He goes studying, I think.” replies Chanhee. 

Seokwoo is just so grateful. He doesn’t even like him too much but fuck, honestly, fuck, he wants to thank him, because he will be lost without him. 

“Oh ... he doesn’t answer his phone too. I am very busy and I thought to stop by but ...” 

Juho seems so disappointed that Seokwoo hates himself a bit more. He just wanted to see his brother, and his brother is lying to him. 

“At the library you have to turn it off. Maybe you’ll catch him next time, he’s very busy, you know, being a med student and all that.” replies Chanhee. 

“Oh ... yeah. Thanks.” 

There is silence, then steps, someone is leaving. 

Seokwoo clenches his fists so hard that he feels his nails scratch his palms. He made his brother leave. His loved brother who just wanted to spend time with him, his precious free time. 

He made him leave because he is an awful person and he can’t even speak to people like he’s normal. He is horrible. He deserves nothing. 

“Hey. He left.” says Chanhee. 

Of course, he knows. He knows everything about Seokwoo. 

Seokwoo doesn’t reply. 

“Too busy drowning in self pity, aren’t you?” 

“Fuck off.” murmurs Seokwoo in between tears. 

“Gladly.” 

Seokwoo feels terrible, well, even more terrible than how he was feeling just a second ago. 

Chanhee helped him. He is grateful. And it’s not like he wants Chanhee to leave: Chanhee has already seen him like this. Chanhee knows, he is not ashamed. He wants him to stay, he wants to go back riding a bike with him, face pressed on his back, when everything felt easy for the first time in months. 

But there is a voice in his head, a cruel voice that says very cruel things about him and now is making him say things he doesn’t want to say. He wants Chanhee to stay, but he asks him to leave, because he doesn’t deserve to have anyone. 

He made Juho leave. He is a bad person and bad people don’t get to be comforted. 

So he stays on the floor, alone, hugging his pillow, because here is where he deserves to be: on the floor crying alone. He stays there for hours, until he has no tears left to cry, until everything hurts, and he has to get up, he has to search for water, finding out he has none. 

He would cry, but he is dehydrated. How ironic, he has to go to the convenience store and get water. He has to go out because he had one of the worst day in his life and going out will make it even worse. 

He hates his life. 

He hates everything. 

He doesn’t even want to think anymore. He just goes out as he his, without even look at himself in the mirror, because he just needs water and he can’t drink from the sink without being probably poisoned. 

He opens the door, but he finds it unexpectedly hard to push it, he tries again and he hears a curse. 

“Ouch!” says someone, a familiar voice he immediately recognise. 

Chanhee is there. He is sitting on the floor, airpods in his ears, like he was just chilling by his door. 

“What ...?” 

Seokwoo can’t believe his eyes. What is he doing here? It’s been hours since he has been outside of his door, has he really been there all the time? Why? 

“Misery loves company and I thought you could use some.” 

He had never left him alone. 

He knew. 

Chanhee always knows. Like a true hero, he always makes the right choice. No, it’s more than that. 

It is something so meaningful for Seokwoo, even if it’s meaningless. Because he stayed, no matter what he said. He didn’t do as he asked him to, he didn’t leave. He got him. 

They don’t need words. Chanhee knows, he knows when Seokwoo doesn’t speak, he knows when he says something he doesn’t really mean, he just does, effortless. 

And he knows exactly what to do, for some mysterious reasons, he always does the right thing. 

He is the only one ever. No one, not even Juho, could get Seokwoo like this. Juho listens to his words, usually, and he does what Seokwoo asks. Inseong pretended to listen, and sometimes even Seokwoo’s friends pretended to. 

No one really took their time to get to know him, and if they did, like Juho, they were always too busy to notice what Seokwoo tried to hide, desperate at the same time to anyone to find out. 

He took the blame on himself, he thought he had been to complicated, and maybe he is, but not to Chanhee. 

Chanhee doesn’t make an effort at all, Chanhee just knows, like he is born with it. Therefore it’s meaningless, there is no love of any kind behind it, just a weird ability to get him a little too well, but Seokwoo was so desperate to be found, to be understood, that he feels warmth in his chest. 

He is here. He never left. 

His legs can’t work anymore suddenly and he almost drops sitting on the floor next to him, desperately wanting to cry again but not having even the energy to. He just stays there, in front of him, and he wants to say thank you and it’s so hard, because he feels his throat closing but it’s not panic, the familiar sense of suffocating, but it’s something else. 

Hope, relief, something inside him that screams “finally.” 

When he is able to speak, his voice is so flebile it’s barely audible. 

“You stayed. Thank you.” he says and it is nothing compared to what he is feeling right now, he is overflowing with emotions but he can’t put them into words and he probably shouldn’t since he is giving too much meaning for something so casual like this. 

Chanhee looks at him. He stares for a long time, analysing him like he is a painting or something, maybe judging his awful appearance since he cried for hours on the floor and he doesn’t even know how bad he looks, and they are so close he can see everything, his dark circles, his moles, his freckles. 

And Seokwoo can see everything too: his long lashes, pink dry lips, tiny moles on his face, his cheeks flushed red, bags under his eyes, blue and purple, his nose who Seokwoo notices now isn’t perfectly straight, it has a tiny bump on it, barely noticeable. 

For a second, for no reason, he thinks Chanhee will kiss him. 

Of course he doesn’t, Seokwoo has just watched too many romcoms to remember that in reality having someone staring at you from up close doesn’t mean anything. And of course he doesn’t even want this to happen, that would be gross and he doesn’t like him at all. 

Chanhee doesn’t kiss him at all. But he takes his hand like he did before, lacing their fingers together as he did when Seokwoo complained about their hand holding being too “elementary school” and it feels so intimate that Seokwoo finds himself holding his breath. 

Then, Chanhee speaks. 

“I am not leaving.” 

His grip on Seokwoo’s hand tighten a little, and it’s a bit weird talking like this, maybe a hug will be more appropriate but it’s not them, it’s not the time, and Seokwoo knows. 

He starts to know a few things about Chanhee now. 

He is assertive, annoying, never impressed by him, he is kind, gentle and considerate. And he doesn’t leave. 

So Seokwoo almost replies that yes, he knows. 

They ended up in Chanhee’s apartment. Seokwoo needed water and Chanhee had it so they walked inside together, Seokwoo feeling a little embarrassed. 

Chanhee’s house was probably like his own: small, but comfortable, with everything you need inside. He added his personal touch though, so in the end their houses can’t look more different: Seokwoo just put his stuff here and there, Chanhee like exploded everywhere. 

The walls are covered in band posters: Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Thirty Seconds to Mars, every old band you can think of. Seokwoo spotted also a Taylor Swift one, next to the keyboard. 

Chanhee has books everywhere, or mangas or whatever, everything is covered in those or in something that looks like notebooks. There are also post its everywhere, not only on the wall or on posters: in the couch, on the table, everywhere but the keyboard. They are all written in a neat handwriting, just few words apparently meaningless. Seokwoo reads one “like a streetlight”. What does even mean? 

The place is crowded but not messy: everything is all over the place but that’s exactly where it is supposed to be. 

Seokwoo normally will hate it: too many things, too many weird stuff, but right now he doesn’t dislike it too much. It feels like a home and he is now noticing how much his own home doesn’t. He hasn’t even put on anything on the walls or bought like, a plant or something. He used to be proud that his apartment looked straight out of Ikea but right now it feels empty. He hadn’t even tried to make himself home there, even if he spent like all of his time inside. 

He never felt the need: decorating is a waste of time when he can be productive and he doesn’t waste his time. Before everything went wrong his time was carefully divided into family time, friends time, study time, extracurricular activities time, reading time and sleep. 

He hadn’t exactly a lot of time to waste into things like decorating or useless things in general.

Right now, though, sometimes he can’t be productive at all. His brain, the voice inside it, gets in the way, and he needs to shut it up. 

Taylor Swift works wonders. He sings - lip syncing because he is afraid to bother the neighbours - he dances and most of the times he is too tired afterwards to do anything but sleep. 

Sometimes it doesn’t work though. He is too sad to hear anything, so he just hides in his bed waiting for everything to feel less burdensome. 

Maybe he should try decorate. Of course not like Chanhee did, his place is hideous for Seokwoo’s taste, but maybe he can buy a plant or something. Maybe some more pillows. 

“Here” says Chanhee, and Seokwoo stops looking around. 

Chanhee got him a big glass of water and he swallows it in one gulp. Thankfully it was room temperature so he didn’t end up with a stomachache. 

“You were dying of thirst, my God.” 

“I cried a lot.” replies Seokwoo. He wants even more water and he just has to oook at the glass to have Chanhee refilling it for him. 

“I’ve heard you. You weren’t loud but it you paid attention you could hear your sobbing. I put airpods on, to give you, like, privacy. I checked every few minutes to make sure you were still alive and not dead because of too much crying.” 

Seokwoo blushes a bit. 

“It was my brother. I usually don’t lie to my brother. I hate the fact that I can’t be with him.” he murmurs, a bit frustrated. 

“You don’t look alike. Is he younger than you?” says Chanhee. 

“We’re twins, and yeah, I know we don’t look alike.” 

Chanhee looks shocked. 

“You mean ... that guy is your twin? I mean, he looks fun! He doesn’t look like ... I don’t know, perfect, like you.” 

Chanhee is the only person that can pronounce the word “perfect” without any positive meaning. But at the same time, he can say that Juho is fun and not making Seokwoo feel like he likes him more. 

To be fair, Chanhee and Juho both love music and if Chanhee will decide to have any friends, Juho and him will make a perfectly good pair. They are creative, full of passion, they have a lot in common. 

But Seokwoo just knows that Chanhee doesn’t have the same connection he has with him. Chanhee doesn’t get him, Chanhee is “his” person, not Juho’s. 

Chanhee stayed in front of his door for hours to not let him alone and to give him space at the same time, Chanhee took him on a bike ride two times, Chanhee held his hand, Chanhee did all of those things for him, not for Juho. 

“Yeah, he is my twin and my best friend. Sorry to break it to you, not all twins look identical.” 

“I know. But if he is your best friend why you don’t want to open the door?” asks Chanhee. 

“Are you dumb? He is people. I can’t speak to people and he can’t know.” 

“You can speak to me. And if you love him you ...” 

“It’s precisely that. I love him. I don’t want to disappoint him. I am his smart and successful brother who he is insanely proud of. And ...” 

Seokwoo can’t tell him that Juho is a part of the problem. He loves him, really, but sometimes Juho tends to vent a bit too much and to not understand Seokwoo a lot. So Seokwoo feels burdened by him sometimes and so it’s hard to speak to him. He doesn’t want to. 

“And he’s part of the problem. Got it.” says Chanhee, because of course he knows. 

Seokwoo doesn’t say anything. 

“Listen. I want to help you. I mean, you need help. Are you still going to therapy?” 

Seokwoo almost shivers hearing the last words and he forgets the rest of the sentence. He hates therapy, going there has been nothing but painful, but he kept doing it. He forced himself to do it, because Chanhee told him so and that seemed like a valid reason. That was enough to keep him going there and hate every second of it and then coming back home and cry his esce out. 

“It doesn’t work. I don’t communicate.” he says. 

“Not even writing? I mean if you could ...” 

“I don’t have a problem speaking, I have a problem with speaking, and people too. Therapy puts the two things I hate the most together.” 

“Have you tried to speak about something you are confident about? Like some cultural shit you know, Krebs cycle or whatever ... it can be a start. You can even talk about Taylor Swift.” 

Seokwoo highly doubts that it will work. Or that he will be fine enough to even remember that. He may look too skeptical because Chanhee talks again. 

“And I’ll help you if you want to.” 

Only then Seokwoo realises what he said. 

“What?” 

“I am no expert and I want you to keep getting therapy because I can’t get you better but therapy can. But like ... I can help you. Maybe in situations like the one you had just now, I can ... help.” 

“Really?” 

Seokwoo doesn’t even know how to feel. He is sort of relieved, he doesn’t even know why. 

“Yeah. But I have conditions. I can help you but you can’t ask for my help. People tend to be too demanding when you offer your help and I am sure you’ll get it. I can, like, do groceries with you and try to understand why you stopped speaking and ...” 

“Why?” asks Seokwoo, “you hate people.”

He knows Chanhee is his only option. He is the only one he can talk to and the only one who gets him, but that doesn’t mean he can accept his help without questioning it. 

“You need it. And I went through that alone and it sucked. I cut people off but I wanted like ... someone there but helping me, not asking me to do stuff. No one did and it sucked so ... it’s like, being kind. But I need boundaries, and you need to respect that.” he says. 

Seokwoo can’t really picture Chanhee needing someone. He looks perfectly fine alone. Seokwoo can’t picture him talking with friends or hanging out with a girl. He looks fine alone, like he’s born to be alone and he likes it. 

Usually people are scared of loneliness. Chanhee told Seokwoo he sought it and he never thought that he would have needed someone back then. Chanhee now clearly loves to be alone and so Seokwoo thought he has always been like this. But he’s telling him he craved people, once upon a time, and maybe he had friends and a girlfriend and all that. And he is still hurt by whatever happened so much that he needs boundaries to even help an almost stranger. 

“You don’t have to force yourself.” replies Seokwoo. 

“I am not. I think I need this too.” 

“Why?” asks Seokwoo and Chanhee steps closer. 

Close enough to touch. 

“Because there is something in you. I can’t leave you alone. I don’t know what it is but it’s there.” 

Chanhee spoke looking at him in the eyes and Seokwoo’s heart started racing, for the first time in a while not because of panic. It’s new. It’s a weird feeling, blue, somehow, nostalgic. Looking at him, having him so close and be so aware of that, Seokwoo doesn’t know why he is feeling like this. 

Chanhee is here. He can put out his hand and touch him, feeling his body warmth and that is suddenly so important to him, so crucial, because Chanhee can do that too. 

He won’t, of course, he isn’t like this. He touches Seokwoo only when it’s necessary or when it means something.

Seokwoo wants it, maybe. He just had Chanhee’s hand in his minutes ago and he can still feel it’s warmth, but that’s somehow not enough. He wants more. He wants to feel Chanhee’s touch again, even for just a second. He realises now how much it calms him, how much every happy memory he has from the last months is linked to it: his cheek against Chanhee’s back, his hands in his pockets, their fingers laced together while they walked on the streets. 

He wants more. He wants more happy memories, he wants more happy moments between all the crap he is going through. 

“Is this because you pity me?” asks Seokwoo. 

“Maybe. There’s more though.” 

Seokwoo appreciates his honesty. 

“Deal, then. I won’t ask you anything, you can help me when you feel like it. I don’t really care much about my pride right now.” 

It’s half a lie. Seokwoo cares very much about his pride. He doesn’t want anyone to know that he is not well, but it’s different when it comes to Chanhee. He knows, he doesn’t care, he is not his friend or anything, he doesn’t even care about his grades or anything. He is just Seokwoo to him. 

“Deal” says Chanhee and he reaches out his hand. 

Seokwoo shakes it and Chanhee steps forward, so they end up weirdly close again. Seokwoo can see his chest rising and falling and he finds it fascinating, to see him just breathing, existing, next to him. 

It’s weird but when Chanhee is near, he rarely thinks about anything else. He is totally focused on him so he can’t really overthink that much. Surely, when they are in the middle of the streets it’s hard not to be aware of people around him but it’s like Chanhee takes a very large amount of space in his brain, so he can’t think too much about anything else. 

He is grateful about it. 

He is even more when Chanhee’s hand move in his and he laces their fingers together, exactly the way he wants to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about late updates i had a very stressful and full of extra work hours week, thanks god it’s over! also again nothing really happens in my stories is just rambling in seokwoo’s head haha


	8. 0.7

Seokwoo’s life, thanks to Chanhee, has a bit of an upgrade. 

First, Chanhee goes out with him every time he has to and that makes it almost bearable to get groceries and doing laundry. Seokwoo holds his hand for dear life and Chanhee does all the talking needed. He tried to make Seokwoo talk once and Seokwoo nearly collapsed crying in the middle of the street so he didn’t mention it ever again. 

They also went back to the Han river. It was still magical, and this time one of Seokwoo’s hands was kept in one of Chanhee’s pockets, tangled to his. They sat on a bench for a while, their shoulders touching the entire time, watching the sunset. 

They didn’t talk much, but it was perfect. Seokwoo could enjoy the sunset without to much worries. He looked around a lot, scared of meeting someone he knew but he saw nothing but old people, families and couples. And besides that, he got Chanhee. 

Chanhee is extraordinarily good on cutting off any attempt of conversation without being rude. He just says he has somewhere to be or something to do and he goes away, dragging Seokwoo with him. He is also a very good liar: once when he paid for him the cashier was kinda trying to hit on Seokwoo who was of course having a breakdown but Chanhee quickly said that Seokwoo was deaf so he couldn’t hear her. She backed off and Seokwoo was so grateful to Chanhee. 

Once they met an acquaintance of Seokwoo from high school and Chanhee dismissed the meeting in ten seconds saying Seokwoo couldn’t speak because he recently had a minor surgery on his vocal chords. So the guy just said a “sorry, get better soon” and left.

Seokwoo cried after, but just about an hour which is pretty short for his standards. 

He cries alone usually, he doesn’t want Chanhee to be there. Chanhee never insisted on being with him but he always waited for him outside the house, not even going into his own home to wait somewhere warmer. 

Seokwoo was wonderstruck by his dedication. He loved the fact that Chanhee wouldn’t leave him alone, he would wait for him even being uncomfortable all alone in the hall. 

It was hard to speak to him about this, and Seokwoo prepared a speech like he did the first time he talked to Chanhee and practiced it several times with his teddy bear. It was hard, but not the bad kind of hard. Not hard as going to therapy or speaking to people. It was hard as a taking an exam, as hard as his piano recitals: difficult, but not unbearable. His heart raced when he told him that he felt sorry for him, that waited for hours in the hall in the cold, and he couldn’t even articulate properly. 

He almost forgot there was no need of words with Chanhee. He immediately understood, and he said that he wasn’t bothered at all, he had his phone and wifi and he usually listened to music or watched something, but Seokwoo insisted and in the end he decided to let him in but he would wait in the living room, while Seokwoo dealt with everything in his room. Chanhee assured him he will always had airpods on to give him privacy but Seokwoo never really minded. 

Besides that, he got to know Chanhee a bit more. He got to know that Chanhee can’t eat spicy food, that he can play any Taylor Swift song on the piano and he can play the guitar as well. He has a night job, he works as a DJ in a club back in Itaewon, he told Seokwoo the name but he can’t remember it. He rarely studies, and he is not very good with studying in general. He reads a lot, anything, from novels to manga, and he reads very fast. Faster than Seokwoo. 

To be fair, he is even better than him on the piano, probably. He never played for Seokwoo anything but Taylor Swift, but he is good. He doesn’t just play the song it’s like he is making it his, it’s like when he plays something he can bring new colours to it. 

He played “willow” to Seokwoo, who wasn’t exactly fond of the song but he needed up liking it: hearing Chanhee playing it and singing it - he has a wonderful voice too - it felt like a whole different song and not because it was sang by a male voice. 

And there was something too, something so intimate and peculiar, hearing him saying “the more you say, the less I know, wherever you stray I follow, I’m begging you to take my hand, wreck my plans, that’s my man”. Seokwoo almost felt out of place, since he was hearing Chanhee’s singing, his soft voice chanting the words he knew by heart was too gentle, too low, for a neighbour to hear. It was for a friend, maybe a lover, but Chanhee hasn’t any. 

Seokwoo sometimes try to picture him with someone. He never said anything about his sexuality so he assumed that he was straight. He doesn’t seem a lovey dovey boyfriend, but he su really is kind and caring. If he ever committed to dating before the whole cutting people off he would have made such a great partner. He doesn’t really look like someone who commits though, at least to Seokwoo. Maybe before the whole “leaving all people behind” thing he was and then changed. 

Still, Seokwoo feels weird imagining him kissing someone or holding hands with someone - he does with him but it’s a whole different story. He imagined Chanhee kissing him a few times, usually when he got too close and he sometimes tend to do that and Seokwoo’s mind just think they’ll end up kissing. Of course that never happen, they never even hugged and they don’t like each other but Seokwoo can’t help but thinking “here it is, he’s gonna kiss me”. 

He always thought he will be grossed out by it. Lately he thinks maybe not too much. 

They spend a lot of time together. Besides the time they sleep, Chanhee works or has classes, they are always together. It’s mostly Chanhee that looks at Seokwoo studying or is just in the same room doing something else. Sometimes he plays piano for Seokwoo, in between study sessions. They tried playing together but Seokwoo doesn’t like it: his playing is too stiff and staged compared to the natural and lively one that Chanhee’s. So he likes more listening to him playing and singing softly.

They also eat together. Seokwoo cooks and does pretty much everything: Chanhee sucks with cooking and housework in general so he finds more practical having him out of his way while he does everything. 

Seokwoo is an excellent cook, to be fair. And Chanhee, for the first time since they met, appreciated him. Seokwoo then went a bit overboard, and he ended up telling him how he makes everything adding his own personal touch but Chanhee listened carefully to it. To be fair, he always says everything is delicious and comments positively on everything Seokwoo makes for him, and Seokwoo always ends up telling him a lot of tmi about him making it. Chanhee never complains though, he asks questions and he always listens. He even offered to do the dishes but he did once and he was so slow that Seokwoo prefers to do it by himself. 

He ended up spending a lot of time looking for new recipes and making them. He always loved cooking, it was a way to get his mind off things and now he likes even more, since it is a way to get Chanhee’s praises. 

He is just browsing online, looking for new fried chicken recipes since fried chicken is Chanhee’s favorite food, and Chanhee’s on the couch, reading a horror manga. He likes creepy things a lot, Seokwoo once tried to watch an anime with him and it was so full of violence and blood that he ended up having nightmares for a week. 

Then Seokwoo’s phone rings.

Chanhee gets up in a second, taking it from the table where Seokwoo left it, and read the name. 

“Do you wanna know?” he asks. 

Seokwoo hates messages and phone calls, and sometimes he feels so bad when he can’t reply to them. He gets anxious just seeing that he has notifications sometimes. 

Chanhee knows, of course, because he knows everything. So he started to take Seokwoo’s phone from him and reading him his notifications out loud if Seokwoo feels like it. Sometimes Seokwoo can reply like this, with Chanhee typing, sometimes he says to Chanhee to write something himself because he can’t do that at the moment, sometimes they just ignore everything and they go on the couch, Chanhee takes his hand and they watch something together, no matter what it is - not something that Chanhee likes, too much blood and Seokwoo will end up having nightmares -. 

This time is bad, but not too much. Seokwoo feels the familiar heavy weight on his chest, and his stomach is tangled in knots, but he can do it. 

“Yeah, tell me.”

“It’s your brother.” says Chanhee. 

Then everything becomes worse. Juho is the worst to ignore, especially after when Seokwoo avoided him in real life. He feels so terrible and so guilty about it, because Juho just wants to be with his brother and Seokwoo doesn’t. He is so selfish. He can’t even sacrifice himself a bit for him. He can’t even force himself to reply to him because he feels like crying just thinking about that. 

Chanhee shuts the phone off. 

“I already told you, you don’t owe him anything.” he says. 

“He’s my brother. I love him.” 

“And he loves you, so he’ll understand. You need space.” 

Chanhee said this a billion times, but Seokwoo doesn’t agree. Normal people can reply to their brothers and to everyone, they are always chatting online and offline. He is the only one who can’t even do that, who feels terrible at the idea to just say hello to someone. 

“Stop overthinking. To be fair, you have to put yourself first. You can’t cry because you didn’t give people attention, they aren’t like, four, and you are not responsible for them. Juho needed attention? Well, you were busy. He is an adult and he can find someone else to talk to. You do you. You have a lot going on and you haven’t to ...” 

“I have a lot going on since months. People when receive a text reply in seconds, not in days. People don’t need another person to reply to someone. People ...” 

“People need to shut the fuck up. A couple of hundred years ago we wrote letters like, once a month, and everyone was fine. You don’t have to be available 24/7 just because people are. You can go mia for months and they just have to mind their own business.” replies Chanhee. 

“I won’t have any friends or family doing this.” says Seokwoo. 

“People who care about you will wait.” 

“But if I shut everything out I ...” 

“They’ll wait by the door. You need time for yourself. That doesn’t make you a bad person, that makes you human. You may need a little longer than the average person but people who love you will understand. Even the thing ... the fact you don’t speak ... they’ll understand. They’ll help.” says Chanhee looking at Seokwoo straight in the eyes. 

“Or they’ll leave. As you said, I am just Seokwoo.” 

Chanhee walks to him. His face is just a few inches from Seokwoo’s and that’s another moment when he thinks “he’s gonna kiss me”. And he of course, doesn’t. 

“I said that when you thought stupid grades and awards makes you special.” ha says, and Seokwoo feels like he is holding back something more, but he doesn’t want to ask. 

“I have nothing besides that and you know it. I can’t even speak anymore.” Seokwoo murmurs. 

“You are a great cook. You know every single Taylor Swift song by heart. You are scared of horror movies and shows and anything that has blood in it. You still sleep with your teddy bear. You are all that.” 

It doesn’t seem much to be fair. Seokwoo used to be the most brilliant student in school, the most handsome and the most popular as well. Being the one who sleeps with a teddy bear past his teen years isn’t exactly flattering. 

“It’s better. I mean, those things are more important than your grades or everything. That’s what you like, what you are passionate about. You are what you love. I mean, Taylor Swift said she wants to be defined by the things that she loves and I think I agree: people should be defined by that. And you love cooking, you love Taylor Swift, and ...” 

“And you? What does define you? Music? It’s a bit better than my definition to be fair and ...” interrupts Seokwoo, but he is interrupted himself. 

“You.” 

He can feel his eyes widening.

“What?” he says, in disbelief. 

“I don’t have a life. Nothing really happens since I don’t have friends and I don’t speak to my family anymore. I just go to work and go to classes and I pretend I don’t exist there. Sometimes I try to play songs. My life is full of nothing, and then there’s you. And you take up a lot of space.” says Chanhee. 

It isn’t really an answer to Seokwoo’s question. 

“Yeah, but, you think, right? I mean, I used to do nothing all day but I thought all day and ...” 

“Yeah, but I don’t really like it so I’d rather play or go out for a run. I couldn’t even tell the days apart before you.” 

Seokwoo doesn’t know how to take it but Chanhee isn’t done yet. 

“You are like, so dramatic. I know you are going through something big but you don’t even pretend to be fine. You cry, you scream and yell at me. When I got through something as well I never told anyone. I just isolated myself from the world. But you keep trying and failing and be dramatic about it. Now everyday something happens in my life, because of you: you usually annoy me being so slow getting groceries, you make me watch romantic dramas that I hate, you once cried on my shoulder in the middle of the streets and you blew your nose on one of my shirts as well. It’s annoying, but you are like, the only one that makes something happen in my life.” 

“Sorry?” says Seokwoo, not understanding at all Chanhee and what he is saying. 

“Don’t. I choose this.” replies Chanhee. 

Seokwoo is confused. Chanhee said you are defined by the things that you love then he said he was defined by Seokwoo but then said all those stuff about him being the only thing that made his life not utterly boring. 

It suddenly became so important that Seokwoo is totally forgetting about his brother, about anything else but Chanhee that replied with “you”. 

It often happens. Seokwoo is overthinking but then Chanhee is there and he says something and Seokwoo focuses on him rather than the mess going on in his head. Of course it doesn’t work every time but sometimes it does. 

He feels a weird feeling in his stomach, and his heart races, but it’s not like when he has to go out, it’s totally different. It’s like Chanhee is making him feel something when he speaks, when he gets to close, it almost feels like fear but a good kind of fear, something that doesn’t make him feel like he wants to run away. It’s scary, but like a rollercoaster: in the end it can be fun.

He feels guilty, though, when he gives this feeling too much attention: the voice in his head gets angry, and it reminds him that he doesn’t deserve to feel this way. He deserves to feel bad, to feel ashamed, since he is such a disgrace. So he starts overthinking again, harder, because he deserves it. 

And now he goes back to Juho, at the fact he is ignoring his brother and he can’t even talk to him, because he is busy thinking about the weird feeling a stranger, almost, is giving to him. 

And then he goes back again with his familiar train of thoughts, that starts with the fact that he is a terrible person and sometimes ends in a place so dark he doesn’t really like to think about it. 

“Hey. Stay here, with me.” 

Chanhee gets closer, so close he can feel his breath, and takes his hand. He always does that when he feels like Seokwoo is stressing out. Sometimes is just simple hand holding, but sometimes he does this thing, caressing Seokwoo’s hand with his thumb, and everything stops existing for a while. He does now. 

“I’m here.” 

Seokwoo hold his hand tight. 

“No, your mind was wandering off as always. Was it about your brother?” asks Chanhee and of course he is right. He knows everything about Seokwoo, and he is sometimes scared that he knows about his weird feelings when they are close or about the times he thinks about them kissing. 

But Chanhee never said anything about that. 

“Yeah. I need to see him sooner or later.” replies Seokwoo.

“Later.” says Chanhee. 

“No, I can’t keep doing that.” Seokwoo looks down, to their hands tied, “I just have to get a grip on myself and see him and talk to him. Like I did with my therapist.” 

Seokwoo managed to keep his therapist. He communicated with him, actually, and it was so tiring and horrible even if it was quick. He slept all day when he got home, with Chanhee chilling in his living room waiting for him to wake up, since he was drained. 

As he stated, it was quick. He wrote a note on the paper his therapist gives to him trying to make him communicate - he tried to make him write, draw, doodle, nothing worked, he even tried to make Seokwoo play with toys and he did nothing but stare - and he wrote “please I want to keep going here”. 

His therapist looked at him in disbelief and he was so proud and even Chanhee, who waited for him outside, was. They celebrated the day after going to Shake Shack. Then of course Seokwoo went back to his normal schedule of not talking during the sessions and not even trying to do anything but staying still, but it was something, right? 

“You didn’t talk. But maybe you should do the same. See him, without talking. Say you have like, throat problems or something. You know pathology so you can easily make up something.” says Chanhee. 

“He’ll tell mom and dad and they will worry and they’ll come here and I can’t stand it.” 

Chanhee seems concerned. He is still holding Seokwoo’s hand and they are in a weird position since Seokwoo’s sitting, his hand is on the table and Chanhee is holding it standing, and it’s uncomfortable probably to the both of them but Seokwoo has like, 0 intentions to let go first. 

And Chanhee doesn’t do it, of course. 

“Well ... you have a problem with speaking not with people. What if ... we can find a place where you can’t speak to him but be with him? A place where you are 100% sure you won’t meet anyone you know.” asks Chanhee. 

That would be ... something. Of course seeing his brother will be hard but maybe he can avoid the thing he hates the most: the talking. 

He just doesn’t understand why people talk to each other anymore. It is just throwing on other people what is bothering you, or useless small talk. Seokwoo feels overwhelmed if someone vents, he can’t speak about his problems and he hates small talk. So he doesn’t speak. 

Except with Chanhee but because Chanhee is different. He knows, and they talk a lot and not only about Seokwoo’s situation or Taylor Swift. They talk about anything, from the shows they watch to books they are reading - mostly the ones Chanhee reads since Seokwoo reads only books about medicine and Chanhee told him that the things he forces himself to read have no meaning and he should do it for his own enjoyment so Seokwoo kinda stopped reading them and he is searching for something he really wants to read and has no educational purposes - or their random thoughts. It is never meaningless or boring.

“There is no place like this.” 

“Maybe ... do you know any vips? Like, idols, actors or something.” asks Chanhee out of the blue. 

“No...?” 

“Then, the place I work in. There is a vip only area and I can sneak you in. The music is always loud and you can’t really hear people speaking. Plus, it’s fun, great music even when I’m not the dj and cocktails are amazing.” 

Seokwoo never went to a proper club. He went to a few but they were rented for a party so he knew everyone there. He never went to properly clubbing. Inseong did, because he was older and thinking about it now maybe he also cheated on him there. Not that he cares anymore. 

“I don’t know.” he says. 

He feels ashamed. He has always done things properly: he had his first kiss in middle school, his first serious relationship in high school, he tried beer and soju way before than the legal age. He tried to always do things right on time, and of course any normal student in Seoul would have been gone clubbing at least a few times. He is now behind everyone. Another thing that makes him not normal. 

“Never went to a club?” says Chanhee then smiles at him, “too promiscuous for you?” 

He is right, Seokwoo hated casual things, but he tried it when everything with Inseong ended. He always felt dirty and used afterwards so he stopped. Besides, with his problem now the idea of touching someone who isn’t Chanhee is dreading to him. 

“I am not that prude. I simply never had the chance. I’ll come though.” he says. 

“Do you wanna come once just the two of us, so you’ll see how it is?” asks Chanhee. 

That makes sense but Seokwoo’s mind decides not to care. It decides to make up scenarios in Seokwoo’s head. Him and Chanhee, pressed together in the crowded club, not really minding though, because they are so close that Seokwoo can bend his neck and his lips will be on Chanhee’s. He can almost see the look on Chanhee’s face, half pressed on his sweaty chest, looking up on him like he usually does, with his eyes big and glossy, his lips parted. 

Seokwoo forbids himself to imagine what comes after, because he knows he is imagining a bit too much. Lips on lips, the taste of Chanhee’s tongue in his mouth, no, he can’t. 

That won’t happen. Chanhee will never do that. 

“I promise, there is no way to get in the vip area not being a celebrity or club staff.” says Chanhee again and Seokwoo feels so guilty to have thought something like this about him. 

He doesn’t even like him. Why should they kiss in a club? They won’t. They don’t like each other. They aren’t even friends. 

“Yeah ... I mean, okay.” says Seokwoo. 

And I promise, he says to Chanhee in his head, I’ll stop thinking about you like this. 

Seokwoo couldn’t keep his promise. But, to be honest, it was all Chanhee’s fault. 

Chanhee usually wears sweatpants and a hoodie, he likes sportswear a lot and Seokwoo had never seen him dressed up even a bit. For tonight, he was like, transformed: his hair were pink again since a few days, he touched up the roots and he probably washed it so it looks shiny and are half tied up like usual, he also trimmed his bangs a bit. The outfit though, that is what is driving Seokwoo insane since hours: he wears jeans, boyfriend fit, and a shirt with two buttons opened. 

Chanhee usually wears baggy clothes and Seokwoo never realised how fit he really is. Now he can see his broad chest, his muscles, under the shirt. Of course, then Chanhee wore a jacket to go outside and they took a cab: Itaewon was too far. 

Seokwoo felt terrified, but when they found out their driver wasn’t really eager to have a conversation and just listened to the radio, he could go back thinking about how insanely good looking was Chanhee. He still is, now, in the middle of the crowd. 

He felt bad at first. So bad he swallowed his first drink in one gulp, because he couldn’t really go on being totally sober. He knows, alcohol helps in situations like this: he always liked to be a bit tipsy back then, when he saw people, because talking to them has become so hard. 

He knew rationally no one could really talk to him. Most people there were famous people, he spotted youtubers, influencers, even a few idols but they weren’t really blending into the crowd, and they surely won’t know him. Still, he felt so bad. He felt trapped, even if he was sitting on a comfortable table with his drink in front of him. 

After two more drinks, after Chanhee’s hand firm on his, he felt brave enough to try dancing. He didn’t know any of the songs, Chanhee told him to try to listen to some pop music, that would have made the experience more fun, but he didn’t, so dancing was boring, until someone patted his shoulder and he almost felt like dying. 

Chanhee took care of it, though, he said something like “he’s with me” looking at whoever tried to speak to Seokwoo like he wanted to kill them and put his hands on Seokwoo’s hips. He was so busy panicking that he didn’t notice until much later. 

“It’s better being more close. People find you attractive and they try hit on you. What a weird taste ...” screamed Chanhee in his ear, and it was barely audible. 

Seokwoo spent a lot of time trying to recover from what happened, and feeling awful about it. It was a pat on his shoulder and he didn’t even turn around, yet he is feeling so bad. He hated himself for this, he took two more drinks to drown everything out and it somehow worked after a bit. It started feeling so distant, when everything felt so soft and fuzzy. So he danced again at it was a bit more fun, because he was drunk. 

But then it wore out a bit, and he ended up still dancing with Chanhee, so close their chests almost touching, and he started to be aware of something that wasn’t their surroundings, or his inability to have social interactions: he started being aware of Chanhee. 

It isn’t only about how hot he looks. It is more about his body, about his being so close, about his hands on Seokwoo’s hips, about his warm breath on his neck. 

Seokwoo feels the urge to grip on something and then he does, and something happens to be Chanhee’s shirt. 

He doesn’t seem to care.

Seokwoo keeps thinking about his fantasy from days before: him and Chanhee, like this, bending over, putting his lips over his, and then finally, finally kissing him. Not a chaste kiss like the ones he sometimes thinks Chanhee will give him, a passionate, shameless kiss. He thinks about biting his lips, putting a hand on his hair and kiss him again and again, until they are both out of breath. 

He wants it. 

He wants even more than that. 

And he does nothing. 

He can’t. He is drunk, but not black out drunk. And he knows those thoughts are just because of alcohol and loneliness. And Chanhee deserves better. 

Surely he is annoying and a bit of a brat but he’s a good person. Weird, sometimes, a bit gloomy, but he is nice and kind, and he deserves better. He deserves more than making out in a club with someone who doesn’t even like him. 

He deserves first dates, shy kisses at the bus stop, someone who waits until the last second to get on, just to spend more time with him. He deserves romantic walks in the park holding hands, someone who plays his favorite Taylor Swift song for him, someone who makes him feel like he lives in one. And there’s no Taylor Swift song that talks about kissing strangers who don’t even like you in a club. 

Seokwoo feels his heart ache, imagining Chanhee and someone else doing all that. A sweet and loving girl, who has no problems and speaks to people with a soft voice and isn’t scared of everything. Someone very different from him because Chanhee never talked about girls with him but he surely doesn’t like gloomy boys who cry in their bed all day. 

Chanhee surely doesn’t like him. It’s fine, Seokwoo doesn’t like him as well. But he doesn’t know why his heart still aches this much. 

Seokwoo wakes up with an headache in a bed that isn’t his. For a moment he panicked, thinking he screwed everything up, but then his memories came back to him. He drank too much, Chanhee took him back home and since he was feeling sick he let him sleep in his bed. 

That’s why Seokwoo’s wearing a t-shirt who doesn’t belong to him as a pyjamas, and his clothes are carefully folded on the chair in front of the bed. He finds a glass full of water on the bedside table and he drinks it slowly, like Chanhee told him to do the night before. 

Chanhee slept on the couch. There was no kiss, nothing shameful or that they will both regret. They were just two guys who hung up together and one of them got a bit wasted. 

They talked, though, when Seokwoo was too sick to sleep and Chanhee kept him company. 

He said he was jealous. 

“Honestly” Seokwoo remembers Chanhee said, “I am jealous of you. Not about the grades or like, your face or your ‘talents’ or really anything you brag about. I am jealous because you get to be dramatic, to always be the damsel in distress. I can’t” 

Seokwoo was a bit drunk so he didn’t exactly got mad being labelled as “damsel in distress”. It wasn’t true, though, he was always the strong one: with Juho, who was very sensitive and vulnerable, with his friends, even Inseong who was older and everything wanted him to be the one who took the lead in the relationship. 

Seokwoo got to be the damsel in distress just because Chanhee is the hero of his own story. Chanhee is strong and independent, he needs no one and fears nothing. 

Seokwoo will be just one of the many princess he will save, forgotten in the long list of people who owe him one. 

“I wish I could be you. No offence, I don’t mean every single time ... just now. I want to get drunk and not caring about the fact that I could end up dead on the street or harassed by some old hag, because someone will take care of me.” he said. 

This time was Seokwoo who took his hand and got awfully close to him and didn’t, of course, kissed him. 

“I will. Next time you get black out drunk and I’ll take care of you. Promise.”

“You drank half of the night and spent the other half being worried. I won’t burden you like this. I know you have the best intentions, but take care of yourself. You came first.” 

It was the first time someone said something so unselfish to Seokwoo. Usually people kept asking him to do stuff, no one really stood behind his “put yourself first”. They put themselves first, expecting Seokwoo to do the same ignoring his needs to fulfil theirs. 

Chanhee didn’t. 

“I am sorry. Thank you” he said. 

“Don’t worry. When you’ll be better, you’ll take me to the club and I won’t get out until I got like, super wasted.” replied Chanhee and Seokwoo remembered he really hoped they will be like this for a long time. Friends, if the word is correct. They are friends. At least, on Seokwoo’s prospective. 

He now smiles again thinking about it, ignoring his headache for a while and going to the living room, where Chanhee is already up. He is humming some melody and touching the keyboard without it making a sound, probably because he didn’t want to wake Seokwoo up. 

“Hey.” says Seokwoo, and Chanhee jumps on the chair, almost like he got caught up doing something embarrassing. 

“Hi. I didn’t hear you.” says Chanhee, blushing for unknown reasons,”how do you feel?” 

“Hungover and tired.”

“Yesterday you did amazing. I know it has been very stressful to you but you did great. Maybe we’ll go a few more times and when you are comfortable we’ll call your brother. Well, I’ll text him for you.” 

Seokwoo knows he did good, but he doesn’t feel ready at all to repeat the experience with his brother anytime soon. He was able to get his shit together because Chanhee was there and he wasn’t afraid of what he thought of him. With Juho, he will be the most stressing part of the night. He won’t feel safe with him, or happy, or anything positive, because if Juho knew then he will be screwed. If Juho knew, he will be the sick one, the brilliant guy who ended up crazy. 

Chanhee already know, and he doesn’t mind. He is treating Seokwoo’s thing like it’s the flu or something, and Seokwoo is so grateful for it. Chanhee helps him, understands him and he doesn’t think he is crazy because he can’t speak to people. He thinks he is crazy because he isn’t passionate about anything and he doesn’t have any hobby besides listening to Taylor Swift and now redecorating his house - he is trying, and he really likes it, his mom is an interior designer so it makes him feel closer to her -. 

Juho won’t, Juho loves him and he will su really try to fix him. He will force him to go to therapy or worse, to an hospital, to a facility where they could take care of him. And Seokwoo knows he doesn’t need that, it will only make things worse. He just needs people to give him a break. But people don’t get it, they want him to be functional and ready to fulfil their needs, like he is a robot or something. He needs to be the best one in school, the most amazing pianist, the smartest one, the prettiest one. 

He can’t just be Seokwoo. 

He agreed with that for a long time. He didn’t like to be just Seokwoo: people don’t like just Seokwoo. But now, meeting Chanhee, everything turned around. Chanhee doesn’t like his grades, his awards, his face. He always dismisses it like it’s nothing. 

But when Seokwoo talks about something useless but that he cares about, like Taylor Swift, the plants that he wants to put on his apartment, the new recipe he just found, Chanhee listens for hours, asks questions, praises him endlessly. 

He can’t say if Chanhee likes him or not, but surely, he appreciates “just Seokwoo” more than anything else. And he likes being that with him, with no obligations: Chanhee asks him nothing. He never vents, he almost never talks about himself too. Seokwoo sometimes wants to know more, he even googled him, but the only Kang Chanhee he found was a child youtuber from a former group of guys called Jaljjorie or something. Chanhee doesn’t have any social media besides soundcloud. 

There is also something liberating about not having to listen to him and his concerns all the time like he does with other people. But at the same time, he wants to know when Chanhee is sad or angry or anything, but he says he mostly doesn’t feel anything since nothing happens in his life outside of him. 

“Hello?” asks Chanhee, interrupting his trail of thoughts. 

“Oh, yeah, sorry. Well, maybe, later.” he says, blushing a bit. 

He always ends up thinking about him as forgetting about everything else lately. 

“Sure, no pressure.” replies Chanhee. 

“What were you playing?” asks Seokwoo, looking at the keyboard. 

“Nothing ... just something stuck in my head. Nothing really worth it. Do you want me to play something for you?” asks Chanhee, promptly changing the subject. 

He is very private about what he does on the piano, besides the obvious playing cover songs. 

“Yeah. Something you like.” says Seokwoo, “not Taylor Swift, something new.” 

“Paramore.” replies immediately Chanhee, “do you know ‘The Only Exception’? I never played it but I like it a lot and it was pretty famous back then.” 

Seokwoo doesn’t know the song so he shakes his head and he listens to a perfect cover of a song about someone who doesn’t believe in love but is starting to change his mind. 

Seokwoo is not stupid, he can be naive sometimes but he is not. And he knows every song Chanhee plays for him has a meaning, and he knows every song on his playlist is a piece of his thoughts, of his memories, of his heart. 

And he hopes the meaning of this song is that now Chanhee is feeling ready to open up a bit, to let him in his life, to be his friend, or whatever they want to call it. Because he knows that he loves him, not romantically of course, but Chanhee is his friend and he’d like to be considered as that as well. He won’t mind listening to Chanhee’s worries sometimes and helping him, instead of being always the damsel in distress as he said before. 

He hopes that somewhere, in his big heart, so big that it’s bigger than his little body, Chanhee has a tiny space for him. Because in Seokwoo’s tired, drained and broken heart, he takes a lot of space. He’s in the cracks, and they are everywhere, filling them up, making him a little bit less broken. 

Seokwoo is on the couch of his therapist and he doesn’t speak. Nothing new. 

“Seokwoo. I told you, you don’t communicate. I tried everything, so I suggested to find someone that will help you more than I can do, because see, it’s useless if you come here and you don’t even move. I have a lot of respect for you but ...” 

His therapist is going off again, same words, same speech. 

When Seokwoo wrote him that he wanted to keep seeing him, he was glad, and he tried again everything to make him communicate something. He tried even to analyse his movements when he was sitting there, the way he tapped his leg with his fingers, so Seokwoo sat perfectly still next time, because the voice in his head won’t let him even blink his eyes too much. 

So they are back again, him not saying anything and his therapist saying he should see someone else, because he isn’t qualified, and he has names and places and he can even call them for him and make appointments but Seokwoo doesn’t want to. 

He hates his therapist because he hates therapy, but he doesn’t want to find someone else that can be worse, someone that will may force him to speak or take him to the hospital or anything. He wants to keep going here. 

But he can’t to anything. He can’t draw, he can’t speak, or his therapist will know and the voice in his head won’t allow that. He won’t understand, it says, no one can understand what’s going on in your mind. You are alone. 

He thinks about Chanhee, like he always does when he is stressed. He thinks about them talking and laughing and the voice in his head silent, because it’s scared of Chanhee, he’s louder than it is, and he is real, he is there, and he leaves almost no room for it. 

Chanhee suggested to talk about something else, something that wasn’t him. To not answer the therapist’s questions but just talk about anything he likes: Taylor Swift maybe. 

Seokwoo dismissed it as ridiculous because who is so crazy that talks about a pop singer to his therapist, but now, when he is giving him the number of some other therapist that he thinks will help him, it seems even decent. 

The voice in his head doesn’t like it. 

Seokwoo takes a deep breath, tries to ignore the fact that he can’t breathe properly, tries to ignore the weight on his chest and closes his eyes, because he is nearly crying, the voice is so angry and he is so scared, but he doesn’t want to go anywhere else. 

So he speaks. 

He speaks about something he loves, like Chanhee suggested to. 

“There is this guy” he says, eyes shut to not let tears flow, fists clenched and his nails embedded in his palm that will probably bleed, but he is speaking, he is speaking about the only thing that makes the voice in his head less scary. 

He hears his therapist gasping. 

“There is this guy” he says again, “Kang Chanhee.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! sorry for the slow updates, chapters here are a bit long (this is almost 7k!) and I want to end them in a way that makes me happy. I know the story is sloooow maybe I have to tag slow burn hahaha thank you so much for reading ♡︎♡︎


	9. 0.8

The next sessions were all Seokwoo speaking about Chanhee non stop. He sometimes replies to his therapist’s question, sometimes, especially if they concerned him, he ignores them. There is just so much to say about Chanhee. The way he moves, the way he talked, the way he always complains about Seokwoo going on bike rides with him - and by with him he meant the two of them on the same bike, Chanhee cycling and Seokwoo sat at the back -. Seokwoo has a billion things to say about him.

His therapist at first was seriously impressed: Seokwoo went from not communicating to tell him everything about some guy who happens to live next to him. 

He is trying his best to make Seokwoo talk not only about him but he usually avoids his questions. He replies only if they allow him to talk more about Chanhee, about every single detail he may forget in his speech.

To be fair, his speaking about Chanhee is usually very very praising. He hates a lot of things about Chanhee, like his hideous pink hair, his attitude or the fact that he is never impressed about his knowledge or academics achievements, but those things came off as nothing when he talks. It’s more important telling his therapist about the way he always says “it’s delicious” whenever he eats something Seokwoo cooks for him, the way he holds his hand and never let go, they way he gets too close sometimes and Seokwoo feels a bit weird, but a good kind of weird. 

He didn’t tell his therapist about the wanting to kiss him, though, and he didn’t even mention the fact that sometimes he thinks Chanhee will kiss him when he is that close. He sometimes still thinks about that, but he tries not too. He wants to be Chanhee’s friend, not making out with him. He wants to be in his life for a long time, he wants to hear him playing anything on the piano for him, he wants to hear him humming the melody he always hums when he thinks Seokwoo is not listening. 

He wants more than just kissing and maybe sex. 

He knows that doing those things with people messes up everything, even if you are in love and all that. He was in love with Inseong and it ended so bad. There is something about people, when you kiss them, or at least when Seokwoo does: they all became cruel to him. 

When Inseong was just his friend, or even in the first months of their relationship, everything was perfect. Inseong was kind and loving, and Seokwoo was so enthusiastic about it all. 

Then, after the first months, Inseong started not replying to his texts, he started to be always late to their dates and when he finally came, he never apologised. He stopped speaking to Seokwoo about his life, and Seokwoo never even knew when he got back home from university. 

Seokwoo then confronted him, asking him why he was so distant and cold, and saying that if Inseong will behave like this, he will break up with him. 

He did because he was sure that Inseong would have said that he was sorry and then everything would have been back to normal. And Inseong did, he apologised and promised to be better, because he loved him and he couldn’t even imagine his live without him and Seokwoo believed him. 

Two weeks later, Seokwoo was dumped by text, the first day he was in Seoul, without even a proper explanation. 

Break ups happen every day, he got over it, but something is still burning in the back of his mind. Something about people saying words they don’t mean, something about people saying one thing and acting the opposite. He never really trusted anyone’s words after that. 

And he doesn’t even trust kisses anymore: kissing someone will only bring trouble in his life and in his relationship with him. 

Besides that, Chanhee deserves more than making out with him just because they are both lonely, or well, Seokwoo is. Chanhee never showed any sign of wanting a girlfriend. Or maybe a boyfriend. 

Seokwoo is starting to think, or maybe hope, that Chanhee isn’t straight. He never says anything about girls, but it’s the same with men. He isn’t homophobic because he has no problem with Seokwoo being gay, but that only means he is a decent human being. He never looks at girls or boys, he never talks about boyfriends or girlfriends, about having sex or kissing people. It’s like the whole thing isn’t something that he cares about. 

But he gets really close to Seokwoo, and he started touching him more, not just holding his hand. He touches his face, usually lifting it when Seokwoo looks down when he is sad, his hips, when they dance or sometimes while Seokwoo is cooking and he is the way. He started to even put a hand on his thigh when they are out for coffee, or when they watch something together. It’s something casual, platonic, there’s nothing more, but sometimes it’s like Seokwoo’s skin burn at the contact and it is so hard not turning at him and kiss him roughly. 

But Seokwoo doesn’t want it, rationally speaking. He wants more to be on Chanhee’s side for a long time than making out with him a few times and make it all awkward or worse, gross him out. 

So he tried not to think too much about Chanhee and him kissing. 

Sometimes is really hard. 

Despite what they agreed on, they never went clubbing again. Seokwoo came to work with Chanhee, though, because it was a little easier staying behind the console with his vodka soda, watching Chanhee putting on songs and occasionally squeezing his hand. 

Seokwoo likes it. No one pays attention to him, everyone dances and they mind their own business and he is almost relaxed, looking at Chanhee. Time flows quickly and he doesn’t need to get wasted in order to survive the night. 

After that they always have breakfast out together, Chanhee orders for the both of them - their usual order plus something new from the menu to try out together - and Seokwoo is so tired he can’t even keep his eyes open but he is always so happy. 

He is the happiest when him and Chanhee are out, there is no people around because it’s too late or too early, and they can talk and eat together. He feels normal, he feels ecstatic, he is out with his favourite person, drinking and having fun. 

Of course those are small moments. The majority of his life is still him being scared, stressed or worried when everything isn’t so bad. When everything is indeed bad, it’s like being torn in a million pieces. 

Today isn’t bad. It isn’t good either, like most of his days. It’s raining, he is inside trying to study, Chanhee is sitting at his table in front of him, trying to get his work done as well, he has an essay or something to write but he is doodling his paper without any intention to start putting words together. 

Looking at him is the only good thing of his day, for Seokwoo: Chanhee tied his bangs up in a messy bun, he is wearing one of Seokwoo’s hoodies, since he came to his house only wearing a tee, and it looks so big on him. He looks so cute today, a pen in his mouth, looking at his doodled paper like he is thinking, but when he puts the pen on the paper he just draw a little annoyed face. 

Seokwoo wants his life to be only like this: only looking at Chanhee, without any worrying, without any fear of people barging in. Just the two of them, forever. 

“You are staring.” says Chanhee, glancing at him and Seokwoo feels heat in his cheeks. 

“You aren’t writing anything” 

“That’s not your problem. I am thinking. You are distracting me.” replies Chanhee easing an eyebrow. 

“You are not thinking about your paper.” 

“Right, I am thinking about how annoying you are.” says Chanhee but with a smile. 

Seokwoo is just starting to think about how good would it be, walking to him, taking him in his arms and kiss his beautiful smile, but something has to remind him of reality, and most importantly, it has to remind him that he can’t have even a second of peace. 

His phone vibrates. 

As usual, Chanhee takes it immediately, bolting from his chair to next Seokwoo, and he looks at him with the familiar face that means “do you wanna know who it is?” 

Seokwoo nods, and Chanhee takes his hand. 

“It’s your brother. He wants to know if you are free on Sunday, he has half day off.” 

Seokwoo holds his hand so hard that Chanhee muffles an “ouch” but Seokwoo is too desperate to let go. 

“Hey. Come on. I am here. I’ll write him you have plans, okay? There’s nothing to worry about.” 

There is. It’s Monday, and Juho told him on time to make sure Seokwoo is free. And Seokwoo pushed back their meeting too long. He is in Seoul since months now, and he never saw his brother, at first because Juho was busy, then because he couldn’t even imagine to speak to him without having a breakdown. 

He knows he can’t avoid him forever. 

“No, tell him it’s fine. We’ll go clubbing.” he forces himself to say. 

“No. Seokwoo.” Chanhee lowers himself, so he can look at him the eyes and he is again so close that Seokwoo will think he’s gonna kiss him, if he wasn’t busy having a breakdown. 

“I can’t keep saying no. He will hate me.” he says and he can’t help but crying. 

The familiar weight on his chest is back, he feels his throat closing, and he can’t breathe. But he has to. He has to be strong, be strong for a night and then avoid his brother for the next six months or whatever. He has to pretend to be normal. Just one night. It isn’t so hard. 

Well, for him, it is. Because he isn’t normal and he tends to forget that, having Chanhee there. With Chanhee he is just a regular boy, with anyone else he is the crazy one who can’t speak. 

“Of course he won’t. Just say you are busy. You went to the club once like a guest and you can’t hide behind me at the console like you did.” tries to say Chanhee but Seokwoo knows he has to do it. 

Juho has almost no free time, being a trainee and all that. He tries his best to keep in touch and Seokwoo avoided him too much. Now it’s easier, with Chanhee typing or replying to him, but he knows they have to hang out and he can’t keep pushing it back, not after what happened when Juho came to his apartment. 

“I have to.” 

“No, ehy, Seok. You don’t have to you don’t owe him.” says Chanhee, holding both of his hands now. 

Seokwoo can’t l’ok at him the eyes. 

“I do, he is my brother.” he says, “he had been there for me.” 

“Well, you are sick now Seokwoo. He can’t ask you to ...” he says but Seokwoo can’t take it anymore. 

“I KNOW! I know people can’t ask me things and I know that is wrong for me but that is the price I have to pay! To have people in your life you need to do something like this, and you know, that is why you don’t have anyone!” he screams at him. 

Chanhee stays silent for a while and Seokwoo lifts his eyes, afraid to have hurt him. But Chanhee doesn’t look sad or disappointed. 

“No. I don’t have anyone because people were so bad for me that I had to run. It was the only way to survive. Your brother isn’t bad.” 

“Was yours?” asks Seokwoo. 

“He is thirteen. And he couldn’t understand me so he was bad for me. Unintentionally but he was. And we weren’t talking about me.” replies Chanhee, looking at him straight in the eyes. 

“I just want to be normal. I just want to hang out with him and be happy and not feeling like I am going to the fucking war everytime I go out or someone speaks to me and I want to go back when I was healthy and everything was good but you know, it wasn’t! It wasn’t even back then because Inseong ignored me and everyone pressured me to be perfect and ...” 

And Chanhee puts his hand on his lips to silence him. It’s just to make him stop rambling but Seokwoo feels shivers down his spine. He wants to be kissed. Maybe if Chanhee kisses him, he will be better. 

Chanhee is like an hero. He is like a prince to Seokwoo, maybe not the classic one but maybe someone from a  
manga, with weird hair and gloomy face. When the hero kisses someone, he wakes them up from their nightmare. And maybe if Chanhee will kiss him Seokwoo will be magically cured and he will be able to carry on. 

He knows that isn’t possibile, he knows that kissing Chanhee will bring him nothing but sadness, because Chanhee won’t like it. 

Still, he hopes for it, like it literally is a magic cure. 

But he only gets his fingers on his lips, and his warm words. 

“You will be okay. This will pass. You’ll be happy again, I promise.” he says. 

“Are you? Are you happy now?” asks Seokwoo in between tears. 

Chanhee brushes them off gently with his thumb. 

“No. But things are changing, and someday they will change for you too.” he says. 

Seokwoo cries harder. 

Chanhee takes gently his face between his hands, forcing Seokwoo to look at him, so awfully close. 

“I am here. You are not alone.” he says, “I’m not leaving.” 

There is something so intimate in those touches and words, even if it isn’t the first time they touch or say things like this. It’s the way Chanhee speaks, it’s the way he looks at Seokwoo. 

And Seokwoo hopes he will never lose him. 

He lost a lot of people, not only Inseong: friends, family members, classmates, they parted ways with him one way or another, each one leaving a few scars on his tired heart. The scars healed, faded, overtime. 

But losing Chanhee would be the kind of heartbreak time will never mend.

Because Chanhee is the first person that helped him without getting nothing in return, he is the only one who listens and understands him. He is the only one who doesn’t ask him anything. He is the only one Seokwoo don’t need to speak to, the only one who doesn’t ask him for answers and attention. 

He is the only one Seokwoo trusts too. He feels terrible, not even trusting his brother, but he knows that Juho sometimes can be a little too much for him. He also knows Juho won’t understand why he doesn’t speak and he will think he is crazy. Chanhee doesn’t. Chanhee gets him. 

He trusted him instantly, instinctively. He thought it was the worst decision at first but now he is sure about it: he trusts him, and only him. It’s like there’s a war and Chanhee is his only ally and also his best defence. 

Losing him will mean losing everything, but that’s not only it. Losing him would mean losing the boy who reads stupid horror mangas at 5:00 in the morning, losing him would mean losing the boy who plays Taylor Swift for him, the boy who almost only wears adidas and has hideous pink hair. This loss would be devastating. 

And he hopes he really is not leaving. For a long, long time. 

Seokwoo spent the week not getting out of bed. Chanhee sits on his desk or on the floor, sometimes they talk, sometimes they don’t, Chanhee got groceries for himself and did his laundry as well, he also cooks for him doing the best that he can - usually instant ramen - and he even forced him to shower sometimes. 

Seokwoo tried to apologise about all that but Chanhee said it was fine. He brought the keyboard from his apartment and played for him lullabies until Seokwoo fell asleep. He gets it, like usual. And Seokwoo is grateful, but he is just tired. 

He can’t even have a proper conversation with Chanhee sometimes, he just is too worn out. He stays in his bed, lost in his thoughts, and not even Chanhee can shake it off. 

When it’s Sunday, he gets up, though. He dresses up, his mind blank, not even noticing that it is only eight on the morning and it will take more than 12 hours to go see his brother. 

He combs his hair until they are perfect, he even puts his shoes next to the door, ready to be put on. 

Then he sits on the couch, stiff and still, and he waits, looking at the tv turned off. 

There is a show on, though, a show made by the voice in his head, and he is the main actor. The show is about how much of a failure he is, how awful he is as a person, how much he deserves the worst. Then it keeps suggesting him what is the worst and Seokwoo just wants to cry but he can’t: the voice won’t allow him. 

Chanhee finds him like that, staring at the tv without anything playing on it, because he has the key to his apartment and he comes and goes as he pleases and he runs to him, and in a second he is on his knees, in front of him, hands on Seokwoo’s knees and a very worried expression. 

“Hey. Hey. We can still cancel, you know? It’s okay.” 

They can’t, and that isn’t okay. 

“Listen. I know you have this whole narrative in your head, where you are forced to please people. You aren’t. Please. Stay here for today.” 

Even Chanhee thinks he is not ready, and of course he is not. But he has to. It’s not only the voice in his head telling him that, he also knows that he can’t keep avoiding his brother. Juho knows him, of course, and he will surely think something is fishy and maybe he will tell their parents and that will be tragic. 

“I can’t.” he says. 

“Yes, you can. What’s the point in being unhappy? What is the point of forcing yourself so much you end up with anxiety just because of someone else?” replies angrily Chanhee, now standing and looking at him infuriated. 

“Because I love him!” 

“Love is supposed to make you feel good, not like this! Wake up! There is something wrong in your relationship if you feel like this and ...” says Chanhee even more angry. 

“It’s me. It’s me that is wrong, okay?” 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” 

Chanhee rolls his eyes. 

“And then you? You are here and you clearly don’t like me and you do all that for me! And don’t tell me it’s for fun or anything like that. I don’t make you feel good and yet here you are. And don’t lie, you told me you are unhappy.” screams Seokwoo at him, furious. 

“I am fucking unhappy because of something else you idiot! You are not making me sad.”

“Then why do you bother? You don’t have to take care of me. I can go alone seeing my brother. I can screw up as much as I can and you can stay out of it. You don’t have to worry. I don’t even know why you did in the first place.” 

He doesn’t know why he is saying that. He wants Chanhee to worry. He wants him to stay close. He wants him to help. 

But he wants to yell at him, he wants to scream and make him realise how much he is hurting. How much he needs help, how much he is broken and beyond repair. 

“Because I want to! Because unlike you I do whatever the fuck I want and I want to stay with you, and I want you to be happy and safe and you are big dumb and self sabotaging idiot! And now you think you are so smart sacrificing yourself for your brother and feeling bad the entire time! And I am done seeing you suffering because of people!” 

Chanhee yells louder than him. 

“Then leave! You don’t have to see suffering me if you leave!” 

“I am not leaving.” 

And then Chanhee sits there, on the floor, in front of him, legs crossed. He looks at him right in the eyes, and his gaze almost makes him want to punch him in the face. 

So they look at each other angrily for long, like, super long. And Seokwoo is so angry that he forgets everything for a while, he forgets about Juho, he forgets about his pain because he is just so angry. Chanhee is clearly trying to test him. And he hates him for that so much, because no one ever dared to do so, not even Juho, he is too nice. 

But then he realises. 

Chanhee is there, and he is not leaving. He asked him to do so, he yelled at him and there he is, not even blinking. 

Seokwoo never got angry as well. He is usually rational, he usually likes to prove people wrong and being praised for that, since he saw the truth all along. He raised his voice just once and ended up being dumped by someone who told him that he loved him, and begged him to stay just to leave him few days later with a bullshit explanation and blaming it all on him, since he dared to speak out for himself. 

Yelling makes people dislike you, screaming makes people leave, so Seokwoo doesn’t. He doesn’t speak at all. 

And now he did. And now he told Chanhee awful things he doesn’t even mean, and Chanhee is still here. He was the one testing him, not the other way around. zit was Seokwoo that wanted him to leave because he wanted to prove his point.

Seokwoo lately thought that love was only pain. Every time someone he loved texted him or talked to him, everything he felt was discomfort, pain, fear. It was even before, because things started slowly and his discomfort began as a quiet feeling of uneasiness, easy to forget but still there, growing stronger. 

But it is not. 

Love can make you feel better. Love can make you feel less alone. Someone who loves you cares for you no matter how loud you yell at them. Someone who loves you stays.

He isn’t sure about Chanhee loving him. He probably doesn’t, since he doesn’t want to have friends, but there is no doubt, he is showing him how it feels to be loved. Because he is kind, because he pities him or whatever. 

Taylor Swift is right: it feels like daylight. It feels like the light, when everything is dark. When you didn’t even expect other than darkness, and then there it is, light. Fierce, that makes you close your eyes, because you are not used to it anymore. You are not used to anything but pitch black and then there it is. 

A pink haired guy who is looking at him like he wants to murder him, who doesn’t leave even when he is asked to. An annoying little brat who fights for him, even when Seokwoo already admitted defeat. 

This is love. 

Not romantic, of course, and maybe it’s all in Seokwoo’s head. But he feels loved. He feels good. He feels cared for, and there is no trace of fear, or pain, or doubt. It’s just plain, simple, a warm feeling in his chest. 

Chanhee will stay. And that is what love is for him now: a guy that sits on his apartment floor, not wanting to leave. 

And so he gets up, he sits in front of him and he pulls him up in a hug. 

Chanhee instantly hugs him back, little hands on his back and on his hair, petting him like he is a puppy, and he feels so different than Juho, then Inseong, than any of Seokwoo’s friends because he is so small, yet Seokwoo feels protected and safe in his arms. 

He doesn’t speak, but it doesn’t matter. They never needed words anyways. 

The evening is a spectacular failure. Seokwoo could sense it since he first saw his brother and he hugged him and he nearly bursted into tears. 

Juho got thinner, he wears his hair shorter than he did back home, and has dark circles under his eyes. He is still the same he was before, funny, lively and all smiles, the same delicate and loving boy he shared his life with. He missed him. He loves him. And he is terrified by him.

Juho then introduced himself to Chanhee, that for obvious reasons couldn’t hold Seokwoo’s hand.

Chanhee was transformed. He acted all lively and chatty, making sure to control the conversation. He started a long speech where he explained to Seokwoo that he worked at the club, therefore they could go in the VIP area and “chill a bit, it is not too crowded or anything”. 

At first Juho seemed thrilled, he talked about music with Chanhee and Chanhee was so good at making it feel like a three people conversation, even if Seokwoo was silent. Chanhee kept telling Juho stories about them, always saying “am I right, Seok?” or something like that, but never waiting for him to reply, just carrying on the conversation. 

It worked for the ten minutes they took to reach the club and going inside, and of course, inside there was music so loud that having a conversation was nearly impossible. 

Seokwoo had two Long Island before Chanhee decided to make him switch to virgin cocktails, and that was for the best, but Seokwoo had so much trouble not being drunk and having to pretend everything is all right. 

He couldn’t even find comfort in Chanhee like he used to, because Juho will get the wrong idea. They snuggled closer for a few seconds when Juho was gone getting their drinks but it was not enough. 

Rationally, Seokwoo knows that Chanhee is there for him, holding his hand or not, but it is so hard not having this tiny comfort in a situation of major stress like this. 

Chanhee, when Juho started to see that something wasn’t right, dragged them to the dance floor. Seokwoo now knows a lot of songs, he went frequently to the club with Chanhee and he watched him putting on song after song, and he listened to them. 

It doesn’t make it fun. It doesn’t even matter because there is people and there is Juho and he is clearly figuring out that something is wrong. Seokwoo was able to have everything kinda under control until then, but it got quickly too much to handle. 

He could not breathe . He was sure he was dying, in the middle of the crowd, and he needed to get away. He needed to lock himself somewhere quiet and safe and never going out. He is suffocating. He feels the weight on his chest so heavy that he is sure he will end up crushed by it. 

He touches Chanhee shoulder, then he leaves without saying anything, almost running away because it is too much. 

And he deserves it. He deserves even worse because he spends all this time trying to be better, he still hopes sometimes to have a normal life and what did he thought just few hours ago? He thought he was loved. He thought Chanhee loved him, but it isn’t true. He doesn’t deserve love. He doesn’t deserve Chanhee. 

He deserves this. He deserves to be locked up in the bathroom, crying on the floor, with his brother probably thinking that he is crazy and Chanhee hating him because she told him it was too soon. 

He deserves even worse. 

His brain is just showing him way to torture himself, to make himself suffer even more, but then someone hopes the door and Seokwoo is so sure he is Chanhee, because Chanhee always finds him and Chanhee gets him and all that, and he is almost relieved. He hopes he can make him better, that he will pick him up from the floor like he did countless times, and maybe they can go back to Juho and finish that dreadful evening.

But it isn’t Chanhee. 

And the voice in his head is so happy about that. 

It is his brother. 

There is no rational explanation for being on the bathroom floor crying that Seokwoo can make up for his brother, not mentioning the fact he can’t speak to him. And Juho’s face is horrified. 

“Jesus!” he says, his face surprised and shocked, “are you okay? Are you feeling sick?” 

Seokwoo, of course, doesn’t reply. He can’t. 

Juho tries to pick him up, and it is so different than when Chanhee does, he is more delicate, more familiar. He picked up Seokwoo countless times, from when he fell on kindergarten to when he was tired and he couldn’t get out of bed. But there is something wrong about him doing it now, in a moment where Seokwoo is too vulnerable to be seen by someone like Juho. 

He hates the fact he is here. 

“I saw that something was off.” says Juho, holding him, “you didn’t even speak. Did you got sick? You could’ve told me. You look very bad. We’ll get you home, don’t worry.” 

Seokwoo doesn’t want that. He wants to be alone, not with his brother holding him and asking him for his phone, so he can call Chanhee - they split up to find him - and Seokwoo can’t say to him that Chanhee doesn’t have a phone number. 

Seokwoo wants just to disappear. He will soon, says something in his head, since he is not breathing. He is desperately trying to gasp for air but it feels like nothing reaches his lungs. And Juho doesn’t notice and he thinks he is sick, well, he is, but not like Juho thinks. 

It’s worse. It’s something so cunning that makes him look like he is fine, but inside he is so broken he is afraid he can’t be fixed anymore. 

And then Juho notices something is wrong. He is asking Seokwoo why he can’t find Chanhee’s number and Seokwoo can’t even shook his head, so he looks at him with a probably deadly face. 

And everything goes to hell. 

“Seokwoo. Why aren’t you replying to me?” he asks, Seokwoo’s phone still in his hand. 

They are outside, Juho told Seokwoo fresh air will make him feel better but of course it doesn’t, because there is no kind of air that can help him. He just stays here, closing his eyes when Juho speaks. 

“Seokwoo. SEOKWOO!” he says, shaking him so he is forced to open his eyes again. 

“What‘a wrong? Seokwoo! Why don’t you speak?” 

Seokwoo can’t reply and Juho’s face starts to show too much worry, making him feel even more terrible. 

It is all his fault. Now Juho knows. He knows something is wrong with him and he will tell everyone and everyone will be disappointed in him. Everyone will think he is crazy and broken. And he is, they broke him, but the blame will be all on him: he is unable to do something that even little children can do, he is weird, he is not normal. 

He needs to be punished. He needs even more suffering, so maybe if he will suffer more he will be fixed, since he is getting when he deserves. Pain, loneliness, despair. He deserves it. 

But then here he comes, without even wearing a jacket despite the cold, storming out of the club and reaching them so fast he is out of breath when he arrives. 

“You are here. Fuck. I almost got an heart attack. Is he feeling sick?” Chanhee asks Juho, adjusting his hair that fell off his ponytail while running. 

“He doesn’t speak.” replies Juho. 

Chanhee stays silent, looking nervously at Seokwoo, but Juho knows in a second what is happening, maybe because they have been too obvious, maybe because too many weird things all together made him figure out at least part of the truth.

“You knew.” he says to Chanhee. 

“He speaks with me.” he replies, trying to look calm and polite, but Seokwoo can see that he is internally panicking and so he is, because Chanhee is his only defence. He can’t go down. 

“My brother didn’t say a word to me all night long. Do you think I am this stupid? And why he doesn’t have your phone number if you two are friends? Why are you here?” 

“I don’t have a phone. Well, I have one but there is no SIM card. That’s it.” replies Chanhee, always pretending to be calm. 

“And what about my brother? Why he isn’t saying a single word?” asks Juho, like it’s Chanhee’s fault. 

“He is sick, you don’t have to worry he ...” 

And then Juho explodes. 

“I don’t have to worry? My brother literally disappeared from my life for months, and I said to myself okay, that is fine, he is busy, then when he starts to text me back a little more we hang out and he doesn’t even speak! I am worried! What did you do to him? You are always around and ...” 

“And maybe it is not my fault?” asks Chanhee. 

“He was fine before meeting you.” 

Seokwoo feels even more terrible. Chanhee was the only one that helped him, the one who understood him and took care of him and now he is the one to be blamed for his behaviour. And Seokwoo wants to speak, he wants to say that this is not true, Chanhee is an angel, Chanhee is the only reason he is able to go out without feeling like he is going to say, Chanhee is the only thing he talks about with his therapist, he is good and kind and Juho got it all wrong. 

But he can’t. He can only try not to cry like a baby, because he is helpless and useless. 

But Chanhee is not like him. He is strong and he can speak up for himself. He is like a true hero, someone straight out of a movie: he never backs up, he is never scared and he fights back. 

“Listen. You don’t even know me, don’t make assumptions and don’t try me. It is not my fault.” he says. 

“Well, maybe, but he met you and then ...” 

“I was trying to be nice but honestly, fuck off. Your brother is feeling sick and the only thing you care about is me, because you are so sure that it is my fault? Take care of him instead!” screams Chanhee at him. 

Juho doesn’t reply, but he goes next to Seokwoo, putting a hand on his shoulder. It feels so heavy that Seokwoo has to force himself not to take it off. 

“How are you feeling?” asks Juho, and it’s very dumb from him since Seokwoo can’t reply. 

He realises a second later. 

“What is wrong? Is it him?” Juho points at Chanhee and he rolls his eyes. 

Seokwoo decides he doesn’t care anymore and he puts his hand in front of him, palm open, so Chanhee will understand. 

It takes takes mere seconds from him to get closer and hold his hand, and Juho’s eyes almost fell off from his orbits. 

“What? Are you two ... dating?” 

“No.” says promptly Chanhee, “but we spend a lot of time together. Holding my hand comforts him.” 

Juho is still trying to process it, and while he does so, Chanhee looks at Seokwoo, silently asking him what he can say to his brother. Seokwoo is so tired and worn out that he silently says “anything, whatever”. And Chanhee understands.

“He is having a bit of an hard time. He is seeing a therapist. He is working on it.” he says. 

“And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t tell mom and dad? Seokwoo! You are feeling so bad that you can’t speak and you have to get therapy! What happened?” asks Juho and he is so concerned and worried that Seokwoo feels even worse. 

Nothing happened. Just a million little things that made his life unbearable, but nothing big, nothing even worth mentioning. Those were all ordinary things, like little paper cuts. One is nothing, a billion is torture. 

“I don’t know either. But you are not helping him. He doesn’t need you to fix him.” says Chanhee. 

“Are you crazy? He doesn’t speak! He is fucking traumatised or something! I need to do something he is my brother! And he needs to get back to normal!” screams Juho at him. 

“I know. But this is his way to protect himself and you are making him feel guilty about that. He will fix himself when he’ll be strong enough to do so. Right now he he needs support. He needs love, he needs to feel safe.” 

Chanhee gently untangles his fingers from Seokwoo’s and puts Juho’s hand in the place of his own. 

He is right.

Seokwoo needs comfort, Seokwoo needs a bit of a break, cuddles and maybe some sleep too. He doesn’t need to talk, he just needs to snuggle with someone who doesn’t ask questions he can’t answer and close his eyes and feel safe. 

For a second, it almost works. Juho is silent, and it’s like Seokwoo is reminded once again that Juho is his brother, his better half, he loves him and maybe he is not his enemy. 

But Juho is too worried to care, and Seokwoo knows that he does it just because he loves him, but it still hurts. 

Juho indeed sits next to him, he puts an arm around his shoulders, but he speaks, and he ruins everything. 

“It’s okay. You’ll be okay, I promise. I’ll talk to mom and dad and you’ll be home and they’ll take care of you. I can ask for like, days off, it’s an emergency, and if they kick me out whatever I ...” 

It’s like he is saying to Seokwoo he will go straight to hell. 

What he fears the most is actually to go back home, and let everyone know about him and ruin everyone lives with his thing. Because that is exactly what his thing wants from him: to ruin everything, because he ruins everything he touches, because he is so bad that he deserves not only to feel pain but to make the people he cares about feel pain as well. 

He will die. He will do unspeakable things if they’ll get him back home, if Juho gives up his career for him and everyone will know about what happened. 

And Chanhee, of course, knows. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. Stay NOW with your fucking brother and don’t do things that you will regret later. He is an adult, he is a fucking genius he always says that and he is getting help. He needs his family’s LOVE and AFFECTION not to be forced to go home and cared for if he doesn’t want to.” he says. 

“Yeah, it worked, the “help” he is getting. He doesn’t TALK!” screams Juho at him. 

“Because things take time. Maybe if he got a bit of a break he will but here you are throwing everything at him! Just hold his fucking hand and shut up for now.” 

Juho slaps Chanhee in the face, and Juho never does that. He never hit anyone, because he is calm and he never fights with anyone. 

Chanhee is got by surprise and just takes it, his cheek turning red where he is hit. 

“Don’t you dare saying to me what I have to do with my brother! He is sick and you helped him to hide it, right? He wanted to hide his from me!” 

“Maybe there is a reason.” says Chanhee, massaging his cheek and glancing at Juho. 

“What?”

“There is a reason if he doesn’t speak to you. There is a reason why he doesn’t want you to know.” explains Chanhee. 

“Yeah, he is sick!”

“And why? Have you ever thought about that? Maybe it’s because you keep stressing him out instead of just let him be! Just COMFORT him! He needs comfort now! Not to hear me yelling at you because you are an idiot.” says Chanhee and Seokwoo is so sure that Juho will hit him again. 

He doesn’t. 

“I am bringing him comfort. I want to take him home so he will rest and he will be in a safe and loving environment. I am his brother, you are nothing to him. I’ll take care of this, now. Come on, Seokwoo, we have to go.” he says. 

But Seokwoo doesn’t want to. He can’t go home, having everyone yelling and asking him questions and pitying him like his brother is doing. He just wants a break. He just wants to lay in his bed alone and finally cry, finally let it all out, hugging his teddy bear. He is tired. 

So he untangles his fingers from Juho’s, and he takes Chanhee’s hand. 

His brother looks at him in disbelief, and Seokwoo uses all the strength he has left to look at him right in the eyes. 

He is not coming home. 

Seokwoo is crying since hours. He is crying with Chanhee, for the first time, he usually hides in his room but he didn’t have any strength left when they finally got back home to have his breakdown in private. 

They are all over each other, laying on the couch, Seokwoo’s face hidden against Chanhee’s chest, and his shirt is wet by all the tears. Chanhee doesn’t seem to mind, he strokes his hair and his face gently, not saying anything. 

Seokwoo spoke. He spoke a lot, the second they got home, he literally started cursing all that happened in his life. It was like word vomiting non stop: he screamed at Juho, because he stressed him out tonight, he stressed him out with all of his problems back when he first moved to Seoul, he screamed at his friends that likes him only because he was smart and good looking, he screamed at Inseong for breaking his heart, and he screamed at himself, for being so weak that he has this thing now, and he can’t do anything. 

Chanhee didn’t say anything, he listened to him, he comforted him with his gentle touch, and now Seokwoo is just crying, too tired and worn out to yell anymore, his throat hurts, since he isn’t used to scream that much. 

“You are shivering. Hold on, I’m getting a blanket” says Chanhee and it’s really freezing in the apartment, but when Chanhee tries to get up Seokwoo grabs his arm so he can’t go away. 

“Come on, dude.” says Chanhee. 

Seokwoo shakes his head. 

“Okay then. Come here, snuggle with me.” 

Chanhee roll la his eyes, but he takes Seokwoo in his arms like he is a little kid and he strokes gently his back, letting him get comfortable against him. 

“I am sorry I yelled to your brother.” he says again.

“I am happy you did. You said everything I wanted to say, and it’s ... nice having someone on your side for once. I mean, Juho is great. He loves me. But he is ... he forces me to do stuff sometimes. Everyone does. It’s not like they are mean but they make me feel bad if I don’t act the way I want to. And I am tired to feel bad. I am tired to feel like shit if I don’t do things that make me uncomfortable. I am tired to be sad, I am tired to live everyday scared and guilty because I have feelings. I hate it.” says Seokwoo, and he hides his face again in Chanhee’s chest. 

“Then don’t. Try to do something that you like and don’t feel sorry about that. You deserve to be happy.” 

Seokwoo feels his tears coming back again. 

“I don’t. It says that I don’t and I deserve to be punished and I deserve pain because every time that I don’t feel bad something horrible happens and it says that I deserve it, and I deserve even worse. I just try to be happy and I am tired that ...” he says but Chanhee interrupts. 

“You deserve to be happy. I promise. And I promise, nothing bad will happen if you try to be happy.” 

Seokwoo desperately wants to believe him. He is so tired to be desperate, he is done with feeling blue. He feels like there is a limit on what he can take and in how much sadness he can endure. He just wants to feel okay again. 

When you kiss someone, your brain releases an hormone named serotonin. Serotonin helps with stress reducing and it usually makes you feel better, mentally and physically. While kissing, in your blood flows oxytocin, that helps you with anxiety and fear and gives you a positive feeling. 

Seokwoo knows it since middle school, and he recently revised his anatomy notes so he knows by heart how that works. 

So that’s maybe why he does that. Maybe because he is feeling so sad and hopeless that he thinks he will be magically cured by it. Or he just wants to feel good for a brief moment, he wants to feel serotonin and oxytocin flow in his body, and he wants to forget everything for a moment. 

So he does. 

He kisses Chanhee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had a few days off so here it is! a super long chapter but finally something happens ~ thank you for reading and have a good day ♡︎


	10. 0.9

Their kiss is just lips on lips for a second, nothing much. But it is enough for Chanhee to grab Seokwoo by the shoulders and pull away, a shocked expression on his face. 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he screams, and he looks so genuinely wounded and disappointed that Seokwoo feels terrible about what he just did. 

“I thought I said I need BOUNDARIES! What the fuck?! Do you think this is okay? Do you think you can do just whatever you like just because you are sad?” he says angrily. 

Seokwoo tries to be an adult and not cry. He is right, he acted like an idiot. He never thought about Chanhee’s feelings, he just needed something that cheers him up. He never thought what it meant for Chanhee to be kissed by him. He is an idiot. He tried to hard to suppress this feeling and now everything is ruined. He has to say he is sorry. He has to apologise and promise that he won’t do that again, and maybe Chanhee will forgive him. 

“I am sorry! It was because ... I mean ... when you kiss someone you produce serotonin and oxytocin and that makes you happy and I just wanted to feel a little better but ...” 

But Chanhee isn’t finished yet. 

“I don’t want this. I don’t want people in my life, why the fuck do you think doing that was right? Why? Do you like me? I don’t like you. Do you want to have a one night stand? I don’t. And now ...” he stops talking, like he is suddenly buffering or something and he stays there, looking at Seokwoo, eyes widening, lips parting. 

Seokwoo doesn’t know what to do, since he is there, still, frozen, and he is just thinking about maybe he needs to apologise again, but when he tries to open his mouth to say that he made a mistake and all that he can’t speak. 

And that is not because the weight on his chest, or because his throat closing or because he can’t breathe, like usual. 

It’s because Chanhee’s lips are on his, and he can’t speak. 

It’s not like, magical or anything. It’s weird because Chanhee kinda stays there without doing anything, just pressing his lips against his for a few seconds, like he doesn’t know what to do. 

But something starts to burn inside Seokwoo’s chest anyways and his heart races like it never did before, not even when he was so scared he thought he could die. 

Chanhee pulls away. 

“I don’t know how to do that.” he says, and his face is all red. 

Seokwoo doesn’t understand. 

“Kissing. I never kissed anyone.” says Chanhee again, looking away and blushing even more. 

Seokwoo is surprised. Chanhee is good looking charismatic and he can probably have whoever he wants and he has never kissed anyone? Seokwoo had his first kiss in middle school. He kissed a boy in the locker room after a football match. 

It felt incredible, but he was thirteen and he was so insecure about that whole kissing boys thing. When he was kissed back he felt so ecstatic. He thought that there was nothing better in the world, and it was just a kiss like the one he gave Chanhee, mere lips on lips. 

It feels somehow thrilling to be his first. Chanhee will remember it forever. 

But .. he was so against it just a second ago. What happened? He was so outraged and angry and then he kissed him, and it was a weird and unexperienced kiss but he kissed him. 

It wasn’t how Seokwoo imagined it. Seokwoo imagined a Chanhee confident, a Chanhee that has a lot of experience and knows how to make out. But it wasn’t disappointing, not at all. It was just weird. 

“I mean” says Chanhee, since Seokwoo doesn’t reply, “The thing ... the oxytocin thing ... is right. It works. I’d like to kiss you more. And I don’t like you or whatever but ... kissing you is nice.” 

“Thanks? I don’t like you either. And kissing you honestly is weird? I though you could do that.” replies Seokwoo, “but it is nice indeed.” 

“Okay then. Boundaries. You can kiss me as you please. You have to teach me how to do that properly I mean, if you want it ... “ 

“Sure I want it.” replies Seokwoo. 

The conversation is so unreal. Just minutes ago he was crying because everything that happened with Juho and now he kissed Chanhee, he discovered that Chanhee wants to kiss him too and that he was Chanhee’s first kiss. 

“Okay. And nothing more than kissing. It is mandatory. No touching under the belt. You don’t even get to ask, it is and it will always be a no. And ... is it possible to not to learn how to kiss? I sucked at math and maybe it is ...” 

Seokwoo almost laughs. 

“You’ll learn. Now try to open your mouth.” he says. 

Chanhee does but it’s a bit much.

“Not like this! I am not your dentist. When we kiss again, try to open your mouth a bit. Follow my lead.” he says again. 

He is thrilled by the idea. Kissing again. More serotonin. And it works. He feels already less sad and more energetic even if he just had the worst night of his life. 

He found out that kissing Chanhee can turn around any bad day. 

“Yeah, okay, do it.” says Chanhee closing his eyes. 

They kiss again, and it is so awful that Seokwoo is almost laughing. Chanhee almost immediately pulls away, shaking his head. 

“You licked into my mouth, ew” he says. 

“That’s what kissing is.” explains Seokwoo, “You are twenty, you know that.” 

“Yeah but ...”

Seokwoo is somehow relieved. He made a mistake, but Chanhee actually took it well. And what is even more awesome, kissing him is just okay, not wonderful, not amazing and addicting like he pictured it in his mind. It was nothing special, because he doesn’t like him and Chanhee totally reciprocates. 

It feels reassuring that nothing can come between them. Not even a kiss, because they are chill about it. It’s just about serotonin and oxytocin. Nothing more. 

A barely decent kiss, just to carry on a little more and feel less lonely and a little less sad. 

Seokwoo was totally wrong. He thought that Chanhee was the worst at kissing, and he was, for like five minutes. Then he learnt how to do it properly. And he stopped being concerned with the “licking into each other mouths” thing. He actually kinda seemed to enjoy it a lot. 

So they ended up furiously making out on the couch. 

And Chanhee is good. Like, very good. Having taught him himself Seokwoo told him everything he likes and Chanhee does it perfectly and he does even more. And most importantly, he is passionate. 

Seokwoo liked kissing, he liked it a lot usually. He kissed his fair share of people but no one ever kissed him like this. It’s overwhelming. It’s amazing. 

Chanhee is like, gifted or something. He doesn’t kiss just Seokwoo’s mouth, he gives him tiny kisses on his face, on his jaw and neck and even on his chest, since he has a few shirt’s buttons opened. He takes his time with him, and everything feels so new even to Seokwoo, that did those things countless times. And it’s not just only how he kisses, it is the way he touches him - Chanhee asked what to do with his hands while kissing and Seokwoo said whatever so he moves them around, on his hips, on his hair, on his chest, under his shirt and Seokwoo nearly died when he did - gently, hesitantly at first but then ha gained confidence and it is almost intoxicating how good he feels. 

Seokwoo forgot everything but him. It’s like the whole world stopped existing and there are only him and Chanhee left, kissing on his couch until they are out of breath. 

“You know, the oxytocin thing. It works, fuck, it works wonders. I am almost happy.” says Chanhee one of the rare moments when their lips are not pressed together. 

He kisses Seokwoo below his ear. 

“Me too. Well, I am not happy at all. But I don’t want to jump off the window like before. I mean, my life sucks, my brother hates me and he will surely tell everything to my parents but I’m getting your kisses and I feel a little bit less bad. And your kisses are great.” replies Seokwoo. 

He wants to kiss Chanhee some more. That is pretty much all he thought about since they started kissing properly: making out with him. There was no room in his brain for anything else but Chanhee and the way he was making him feel, the sweetness of his kisses and the warmness of his hands. 

And that was something new. Chanhee always helped him not to get lost in his thought but this? Concentrating on him and him only, no bad thoughts, no voice in his head, nothing. Even thinking about Juho and what happened is not making him feel bad like it should: it feels so distant, almost like it was something happened to someone else. 

Everything feels like it happened to someone else. 

Seokwoo always felt used. By friends, classmates, boys. He was the smart one so everyone asked him for help, he was the handsome one so everyone wanted to date him, and all of those people that got closer just because they needed something. He was hugged, kissed, touched by all of them, and it was all to use him for their own good. 

And he started to feel like it, he started to feel like an old cardigan thrown away under the bed when he wasn’t needed anymore. Especially after his relationship with Inseong ended he felt like he was thrown away, like he was not worth anything anymore. He was just a waste, of space, of oxygen, of time. He was not necessary. And Inseong left a trace on him so heavy that he can’t erase, and to him it was like people could see it: he was just second hand. They all treated him like he was, when he tried to meet new people the brief times he was in Seoul and he wasn’t sick yet. 

Chanhee makes him feel brand new. It’s the way he kisses him, full of eager and passion, it’s the way he touches him, gentle but curious, like there is so much to see, so much to gently stroke with his fingertips. He is treating him like he is something new, something fancy he got for himself and he almost afraid to touch but he can’t wait to do so at the same time. 

It’s always like that with Chanhee. 

Seokwoo isn’t the brilliant student, the award winner, the SNU medical school first year to him, Inseong’s ex, he is nothing but a boy named Seokwoo. Chanhee knows him like that.

And he stays with him for that. Not for the grades, not for his brain, for his looks, he doesn’t care. 

And being just a boy, being himself and nothing more, it’s like making Seokwoo forget about all the scars he has on his heart. When he is with Chanhee, he can almost feel those getting smaller. 

Of course, scars on the heart don’t work as real life ones. They get also bigger and deeper, when something triggers him, when he thinks too much. Chanhee can make him better, being with him it’s like stitching his wounds, but then stitches break, and Seokwoo has to start again. 

Most importantly, Chanhee can’t heal him. Stitches can help a wound close, reducing scarring and the risk of infections, but only platelets can really heal him. Only Seokwoo can heal himself, Chanhee can just help him putting things back together. Or well, he can also help him ignoring everything like he is doing now. 

“Thanks. I got the best teacher.” replies Chanhee with a smirk. 

“I really want to kiss you now.” replies Seokwoo. 

“You don’t have to ask. I mean, I overreacted earlier but it was because ... I mean, I thought it wrong. It is good, kissing. I like it. You can kiss me how many times as you like.” 

“Same goes for you.” says Seokwoo and his lips are on Chanhee’s, finally. 

Chanhee instantly kisses him back, now confident in this new just learned skill. And it is instantly overwhelming, the way he shifts his body to adjust on Seokwoo’s, the way his hands are in Seokwoo’s hair, tugging at it gently. 

Seokwoo loses himself in the warmth of Chanhee’s body and it has been so long since he felt something like this. He dies a little every time that Chanhee’s lips are on him, kisses light as a feather on his lips, jaw, chin and neck. 

Chanhee’s hands now are on his chest, under his shirt, just laying there and caressing his slightly, stopping just when Seokwoo moans because Chanhee just bit his bottom lip and sucks at it, and fuck, where he learned that? 

Now Seokwoo wants more. He gives Chanhee a kiss on his neck, just one, to make sure that Chanhee is okay with that but when he looks at him Chanhee just looks back at him, glossy lips partying and pupils widening, and he knows he can do it. He gives him kisses, he bites him, he sucks at his neck a bit, being careful not to leave marks. 

Chanhee grabs him by the hair and for a second Seokwoo thinks he isn’t okay with what he just did, but then Chanhee puts his lips on his and he understands he just wanted this. 

It’s just addicting, when they kiss, and he knows it is for Chanhee too. 

Seokwoo wishes this could go on forever. No Juho, no parents, nothing but the two of them, frozen in time, kissing on the couch, where everything feels so distant and insignificant.

Juho didn’t call Seokwoo’s parents, in the end. He wrote him a long ass paragraph, Seokwoo couldn’t get through the first line without feeling like he was dying so Chanhee read it for him in the end and he summarised it to Seokwoo when he felt a bit better.

Long story short, Juno had thought everything through. He even searched online about it and he pretty much understood that Seokwoo needed a break. Well, he said he understood Seokwoo needed therapy and not someone screaming at him. 

He asked a lot about therapy, indeed. Chanhee answered it all for him. He told Juho his therapist’s name and how it is going. It was then when Chanhee learned that Seokwoo finally spoke to him. 

He was surprised and happy for him. Seokwoo couldn’t tell him about what he is talking about with his therapist, since the subject it’s him and him only. Chanhee will find it weird, if he knew. 

Juho also wants to constantly check up on Seokwoo. He, thanks God, learned that he is uncomfortable with phone calls, but he is okay with texting. And Juho doesn’t know that it’s Chanhee that replies to his concerned texts, sometimes even without Seokwoo telling him what to write, because he is feeling so bad. 

It kinda worked. Juho agreed not to tell their parents yet. He will, though, if Seokwoo doesn’t get better or stops getting therapy. When Chanhee read that out loud to Seokwoo he couldn’t help but thinking and saying how much his brother was an asshole. 

Chanhee replied that he agreed with Juho, especially with the therapy part. 

Seokwoo doesn’t understand why everyone is so obsessed with therapy. It isn’t helping him at all, he just blabbers for an hour straight about Chanhee, never telling his therapist anything about himself or his problem. If he tries to corner him with questions Seokwoo just shuts up. 

He didn’t tell his therapist about the kissing part, well, not yet. It is not like he is keeping it secret: it isn’t really that what matters talking about Chanhee. He is an excellent kisser, yes, but he is so much more. 

Since their first kiss, Seokwoo and Chanhee have got even closer. Maybe it’s also the fact they are half lying to Juho, and lying together is something that brings people closer, somehow. 

They are spending, again, all of their time together. Chanhee is playing a lot on the piano something that, Seokwoo thinks, is not a cover song. Maybe he is writing one. He does that only when he thinks Seokwoo is not around, maybe because he is shy. Seokwoo doesn’t ask him about it, since he knows that he doesn’t like when he crosses boundaries. 

Chanhee doesn’t talk about himself a lot. He hates when Seokwoo asks too much questions and he usually avoids them, but sometimes he tells him something, and Seokwoo memorises it like his life depends on it. Chanhee had a baby brother, his favourite Taylor Swift album is evermore, his favourite band is Paramore, he likes fried chicken a lot and he had never kissed anyone before him. 

Other than that, Seokwoo respects his privacy. He also respects the rules Chanhee had told him during their relationship: no asking for help, nothing more than kisses. It is hard, not the first one, because Chanhee always helps him and he is always with him, and Seokwoo is not used to ask for help, but the second one is getting a bit tricky. 

They kiss a lot. Seokwoo had thought at first that they will just randomly make out when they felt sad. Always behind closed doors, because they are not together. It would have been like something like friends with benefits. 

Seokwoo, once again, was wrong. 

Chanhee kisses him everywhere. Once Seokwoo said he was okay with it he got random kisses even when they walked on the streets. Chanhee always holds his hand, sometimes he kisses him, and probably everyone that sees him thinks they are together. Seokwoo doesn’t mind and Chanhee doesn’t either. 

It is nice, because Seokwoo is always agitated when they are out. No matter what, he is always worried to meet someone he knows, even if he has Chanhee and Chanhee is able to get away super fast in any social situation. He is still scared, he is afraid to get caught by someone, he is scared that someone will notice something is wrong with him, like Juho did. 

It is not normal that Chanhee always speaks for him, and people sometimes notice that there is something weird between them. Chanhee pays for him with his card, he orders for him, when someone asks Seokwoo a question he answers for him. 

But then, if they will look closely to them, they’ll see Seokwoo speaking to Chanhee like a normal guy, and he hopes for strangers and acquaintances it is enough not to think that he is crazy. 

They started going out a bit more too. They don’t always go to then Han river or shopping, the started to eat out a bit more, choosing to do it instead of ordering in like they used to. 

They aren’t dates but they feel like it. Chanhee and Seokwoo choose carefully the place together, they go there hand in hand or biking - and it is always the same, Chanhee doing all the work and Seokwoo sitting behind him, cheek on his back, hugging him - and sometimes after they share a quick kiss. 

Seokwoo learned that at restaurants he can be a little comfortable: they always book a private table and they can spend time together without being bothered by anyone and eating delicious food. 

Seokwoo likes it a lot when they do this. 

He feels so normal, when he is sitting in a chair in front of of Chanhee, eating and laughing with him. He is able to go out to eat, he can have a conversation with someone while there. He is so happy just thinking about it. 

But, at the same time, his life isn’t much better. He gets sad so fast and easily, there are days that he spends entirely in bed, crying or just laying there, with Chanhee in the living room or even in his own bedroom, he isn’t able to do anything alone if it means going out and seeing people, no matter how hard Chanhee is trying to make him to. 

They fight a lot about this. Chanhee wants Seokwoo to try speaking to people, to try doing something alone, like even jus doing laundry. Seokwoo hates it, he doesn’t understand why he has to force himself to do something he knows will make him feel bad when he can do it feeling a bit better. 

Chanhee, and sometimes even Juho, say to him that he doesn’t want to get better, and that is ridiculous. Seokwoo desperately wants to get better, but he knows that he wont get better like this. 

He is doing everything he can to get better: he goes to therapy, he speaks there, he goes out, he sometimes even reply to Juho by himself. 

When they fight they always make up. It’s not like, kiss and make up, usually, it’s more talking everything through for hours until they make sure that they are not mad at each other anymore. And usually after that, when everything is okay, they share a few kisses. 

But they don’t fight that often.

They are chill, most of the times. When they aren’t fighting and Seokwoo is not having a breakdown they usually spend time together and it is wonderful, even if Seokwoo is just studying and Chanhee is doing his stuff nearby. 

They are like this now, Seokwoo is trying to understand how calcium works in muscles and Chanhee is browsing on the internet, and Seokwoo just gets distracted sometimes by him just being there. 

Chanhee is so amazing. Surely, he can be annoying sometimes but he is just so full of wonder. Seokwoo finds it pleasing just to look at him existing: Chanhee is so pretty, even if he has bags under his eyes, his bangs are parted midway by two pins, his cheeks are red, but they always tend to be red. 

And he is smart too. Not conventionally smart, like Seokwoo, who knows stuff because he studied it restlessly: Chanhee knows things because he is passionate about it. He knows pretty much everything about contemporary music, about anime and even about random things. He once explained to Seokwoo everything about Huntington disease, because he saw a tv show about it and his knowledge was very precise and punctual. 

And there is a peculiar way, when he talks about stuff he knows, it is not like a boring repeating what he just saw or read: he tells it like a story, making it interesting, adding to it his personal color, no matter how scientific the informations are. 

And Seokwoo started to be interested in things just because Chanhee talks about them. He started to read fiction, after giving up on medical books, and he discovered he likes reading a lot and reading is fun, and you can do it just because. 

Seokwoo discovered how much fun is doing something that doesn’t concern his academic career and it’s not immediately useful. It feels relaxing, and he is relishing now how much he hasn’t tried to relax in years. Even taking a long bath at home made him feel guilty because he was wasting time. 

Chanhee is a procrastinator. He can fill his time with the most useless things when he has something to do especially university related. And Seokwoo gets involved in his procrastination a lot, they end up watching random YouTube video, trying crazy workouts or impossibly hard diy just because Chanhee is in the mood of avoiding his responsibilities. 

“You’re staring.” Says Chanhee, looking at him as well.

“You are pretty.” Replies Seokwoo, giving him an innocent smile. 

“You want to kiss me so bad.”

Chanhee raises his eyebrows, and Seokwoo knows it is like an open invitation. 

“You are right.” he says, smiling at him again. 

He has never got someone like this, someone to tease, someone that has this bond with you where you can be playful like this, being sure that they want to have fun with you as well. 

“Then do it. I was looking for a new tracksuit but nothing suits my tastes and ...” 

And he can’t go on, Seokwoo’s already kissing him. A soft and sweet kiss, then he caressed gently Chanhee’s neck, looking at him and smiling again. He can’t help it, Chanhee makes him smile a lot since they kissed. 

“Yeah, got my serotonin. Thanks.” 

Chanhee gives him a little kiss on the lips, then he grabs his waist, not letting him go. 

He has become very fond of physical contact, and Seokwoo thinks this is maybe because he is very affection starved. Seokwoo had his friends and family before that, Chanhee is alone since longer. And Seokwoo doesn’t really mind being touched a lot, he likes it, he is a bit affection starved himself. 

Besides, Chanhee touches him like no one ever did. He is careful, like Seokwoo is something fragile and precious, but sometimes when things gets a bit heated up, he is very passionate. His hands travel everywhere on Seokwoo’s body and he has to try his best to keep his own to himself like he promised him. 

But thankfully now it’s just a little hug, nothing that will make Seokwoo lose his mind. 

Sometimes when they are like this Seokwoo feels something. It’s different than the usual being a little better because he is ignoring everything that is going on in his life. 

It’s the feeling maybe the future won’t be something to be scared for. 

He has a lot of deadlines, papers to send, exams he has to show up for and he doesn’t know how, but those times, when Chanhee is next to him, he feels like maybe there will be something good ahead. Maybe there will be a time when Seokwoo will be back to normal, and him and Chanhee will be laughing on the streets, holding hands and without any worry. There will be a time when Seokwoo will order for Chanhee at the coffee shop, when he will introduce him to his friends and everything will be okay. 

He can see a bright future, those times, and they are so rare and precious, because they make him want to live more, they make him eager to see what’s next, because it can be something beautiful, maybe. 

He knows, they are just mere moments. Fear and despair will get him no matter what, the voice in his head will speak its cunning words again. But he has learned to enjoy them, to steal one more kiss from Chanhee, or maybe two, and let himself hope for a little while. 

Chanhee plays a lot lately. He is playing anything, and Seokwoo is really impressed by how many songs he can cover: literally everything, sometimes he asks Seokwoo for requests and he knows literally everything, from classical music to Taylor Swift and random hits. He just needs to hear the music once to “refresh” his playing (as he said). 

Seokwoo doesn’t ask him questions, he knows how much Chanhee hates it. He just listens to him playing and he suggests him songs whenever he asks to. 

Like now, Chanhee just asked him about what song he’d like him to play. 

“Like, if you had the chance to listen to a song, and a song only, what song would you choose?” asks Chanhee, sitting in front of the keyboards.

“Love Story” replies Seokwoo, and of course, he means the song by Taylor Swift. 

He knows it is a bit of a plain choice, but he can’t help but love the song a lot. 

Chanhee frowns a bit. 

“I forgot you don’t know any kind of normal music if I don’t make you listen to it.” he says, and then he takes his phone and starts looking at his music library. 

“It isn’t about that. I mean, I know it is a super famous song but I like it because it’s everything I dream about. Like, I didn’t dream much about love, I was too busy, but when I did, it was like this. It was about meeting someone and not even knowing that he is gonna be so important to you, maybe not even noticing him at first. But then he makes his way to you and everything changes. And when you two are together is like your little escape from your worries and everything feels magical and it’s like you share your own secret little world. And when things get hard and you think that the magic is over, that is when everything starts being even more special. When you feel hopeless and you just want to be rescued from your own thoughts here he is, ready to save you from every single doubt. That’s when you get your own happy ending. I know it is plain and boring but I think it’s so romantic. Having a love that doesn’t become complicated. Having someone that will choose you no matter what, that will tell you that you’ll never be alone.” 

Seokwoo realises how silly it must have felt for Chanhee to hear all that. 

Chanhee knows little about his love life. He knows he has an ex boyfriend named Inseong and that he had one night stands here and there after him, for the short period of time that he was still okay. 

He doesn’t even know that Inseong broke his heart, and for very very long Seokwoo couldn’t even think about love. 

So to him all his speech probably seemed just an idiotic rambling, and Seokwoo feels very embarrassed by it. He has to learn how to shut up, and it’s ironic since he doesn’t speak to anyone but Chanhee. 

But he forgot that Chanhee gets him. 

Chanhee doesn’t reply, he stays silent for a while and then he turns to him, handing him his phone. 

“Do you mind filming me while I play?” he asks, “Please, be careful not to show my face.” 

Seokwoo at first things that Chanhee is just choosing to ignore his rambling. 

He nods, taking Chanhee’s phone and getting ready to film him. 

He doesn’t know why Chanhee never thought about it earlier: he is a very very good pianist and singer, and posting his stuff online will surely get him a lot of attention which is, good, if you are studying music right? 

He had to hold himself back and try not to shiver when he hears the first notes, because Chanhee is playing Love Story.

He tries to film him as best as he can, trying not to be too emotional, because Chanhee is playing the song he suggested by him and there is just something special in the fact that he let him choose it and filmed it, even if the video will always stay in his phone. 

When Chanhee finish to sing and play, Seokwoo is almost crying, and he doesn’t even know why. It is just a song. A song he really loves, though, but he thought it was just silly. 

Chanhee took him seriously. 

There is something about him, about the fact that he doesn’t even take seriously every academic award that Seokwoo received, not even his grades, but when he speaks about something he likes or his feelings Chanhee considers it the most important thing in the world. 

He never said that of course, but sometimes Chanhee too doesn’t talk, but his actions speak for him. 

Chanhee takes his phone back, without saying anything, and he looks at the video, thumb in his mouth, biting it, and when he finishes watching it asks Seokwoo: “Do you think it’s good?” 

“It’s wonderful. You know that I love when you play.” he replies immediately. 

Chanhee doesn’t say anything. He just takes Seokwoo’s hand in his and he looks at him, faintly smiling. 

Seokwoo almost forgot about the video.

They are just living like normal, hanging out a few times a week, spending time home together, kissing or chilling. Seokwoo isn’t feeling so bad this week: his therapy session went almost well, since he could speak all the time about Chanhee without being interrupted and then Chanhee took him at a very nice cafe after. 

They enjoyed being there so much that they planned to go there again during the week so here they are, walking towards the little cafe. 

Seokwoo is feeling almost good. It is a chill day, despite it being winter, the sun is shining and the streets aren’t crowded, since it is early afternoon. 

Besides that, Seokwoo is holding Chanhee’s hand, and he feels protected. He knows that even if he’ll meet someone Chanhee will end the conversation in seconds without even letting the person notice that Seokwoo doesn’t speak. 

Seokwoo should have known. The second he feels almost decent, that is the second when everything goes to hell. But he is feeling strangely better than usual, so he doesn’t even think about it. 

He just goes in the cafe with Chanhee, they choose a seat and then Seokwoo sits here, Chanhee goes to the counter to order for the both of them.

Seokwoo doesn’t really like to wait for him alone. He usually keeps his mask on and the cap over his eyes, and he tries to calm himself looking at his phone. 

Recently he took a photo with Chanhee. Just one, and it was because recently Chanhee asked him if he can take videos of him for a project. He said that he wanted just to film him from behind or without showing his face anyways but Seokwoo doesn’t really mind if his face is shown in a school project. 

It feels a bit weird when Chanhee films him, usually from distance or walking in empty streets, but whatever. 

Since Seokwoo was filmed this much, he asked Chanhee why he didn’t want to be filmed by him, but Chanhee looked widely uncomfortable. Seokwoo felt like he doesn’t like to be filmed, which is weird since he was indeed filmed by him. So he asked him if he was uncomfortable with photos too, and Chanhee shook his head.

Then he took his phone and took a picture of the two of them as proof. He said to not have any problems whatsoever but the whole thing seemed very odd. 

The picture is nice though. Chanhee looks like himself, gloomy and angry, and Seokwoo looks surprised and he is even blushing a bit. 

Seokwoo look at it a lot. He even saved it onto his laptop, to be sure he’ll never lose it. It is his little treasure. He sometimes smiles just looking at it, he doesn’t know why, and if Chanhee didn’t use his phone a lot he would have probably set it as a locker. 

He looks at it when he feels unwell too. So now he is looking for it in his gallery, mentally counting the seconds that Chanhee takes to get back to him. 

“Seokwoo?” 

He knows this voice. And it isn’t Chanhee. And it feels like a nightmare, the worst one he has ever had. 

He can’t even believe he is here. He can’t believe that they met, because his uni is far away and besides that wasn’t he doing some internship elsewhere?

Seokwoo can’t reply, of course. He can’t even move. 

But Chanhee comes, like usual, to the rescue, and Seokwoo thinks that maybe it will be over, he’ll go away and he will cry in Chanhee’s arms at home later and he’ll forget everything kissing him. 

But the worse is yet to come. 

“Hey. Who are you?” asks Chanhee, and Seokwoo can’t even lift his gaze, Seokwoo can’t look at Chanhee and him, Seokwoo can’t see his face again, not now, when he was feeling almost okay. 

“Oh... I’m Inseong.” says, indeed, Inseong, the man who broke Seokwoo’s heart. 

Chanhee knows his name, but he says nothing, not even his own name. Seokwoo is just forcing himself to stop looking at his phone and look at them, just to look a little bit normal, when Inseong speaks again. 

“Oh my god ... you are Kang Chanhee! Aren’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update! I am working extra hours every day and this weekend I needed a bit of me time ... this week will be like this as well, I promise updates will be faster after I’ll finish working all those extra hours! thank you for reading as always ♡︎


	11. 1.0

Seokwoo learnt it the hard way: people don’t care about you. There is all this useless rambling they do about how much you mean to them, they make you playlists, gifts, anything, but in the end, they only care about you because you make them feel good about themselves. 

He can easily show proof of this every single time he finds the strength to reply to his chats on kakao talk (or when Chanhee does for him). All that he gets are speeches about the other person’s life and no one ever bothered to ask him what was going on in his life. 

“That’s the worst” said once Chanhee, when Seokwoo looked gloomy scrolling his chat history, “that’s why I don’t have friends. It’a all fake. We don’t want friendships, we just want people to throw out issues at to have a bit of comfort. They could die and we won’t even care. It’s all bullshit. Friendships don’t exist” 

“I care.” said Seokwoo, because he cared about Chanhee, truly. Chanhee doesn’t speak about himself and Seokwoo doesn’t ask because he knows he doesn’t like it, but he will listen to him if he ever wants to say something. 

“We are not friends.” said Chanhee in return and Seokwoo learned how to get him so he didn’t take it bad. He knows that Chanhee has no friends because he doesn’t trust people, and he also knows that they don’t exactly fit the “friends” category. They are too close and too far apart at the same time. 

But it’s comforting. They both have issues with their friends, so not having to fit the label with the certain disappointment that it has always brought to them it’s surprisingly good.

They are not friends but it’s not a lie, Seokwoo cares for Chanhee. And Chanhee cares for him as well. 

And now Seokwoo is in front of the man that broke his heart, he can’t breathe, he feels like dying, but when he sees Chanhee everything gets even worse. Because he cares. And it sucks, because he is getting so bad and he can’t, not now. 

Chanhee is so pale he looks like a ghost. He isn’t moving, he is just looking at Inseong like ha had seen his worst nightmare walking towards him and ask him how he is. 

He looks terrified. 

Seokwoo doesn’t understand: how come Inseong knows Chanhee? Chanhee is so peculiar that Inseong would have surely told him about his acquaintance with pink air. Inseong talks a lot about people he knows, usually not in a very complimenting way. 

But not once he said “Kang Chanhee”. Not once he said anything that resembles Chanhee since Chanhee is so peculiar, so unique, that Seokwoo would have surely remembered few details about him that matches the person he spends all of his time with. 

But Inseong knows him, and Chanhee clearly hates that. 

Seokwoo hates it too. He hates himself too, he hates himself the most, because he can’t help Chanhee. 

He knows what he is feeling now. The dreading sensation in his chest of being trapped, without a single way out. And you can’t do anything, you can’t even breathe, because you know that you are beyond screwed. And no one is going to save you. 

Seokwoo was saved many many times by Chanhee. Chanhee is the hero, Chanhee is brave and he always saves the day. 

But this time he looks rather helpless. He needs someone and Seokwoo wished with all of himself that he could be the one. 

He can’t. 

He can’t even breathe, he is in the verge of tears and he can’t think straight, because the voice in his head screams at him how much he is a terrible person because he can’t even help the guy who saved him so many times. And it is right: he sucks. 

He can only force himself to move, to grab with two fingers Chanhee’s shirt, to let him know that he is there for him at least, even if he is completely useless. 

But that is miraculously all it takes. 

“Yeah, that’s me.” says Chanhee, faking confidence in a second. 

Seokwoo is there, still dying inside, but he can’t help but being proud of him. 

Chanhee is a true hero, a prince charming straight from the movies. He is brave, he doesn’t back up, he always fights back. Even when everything seems lost here he is, finding the strength to fight, because he is so strong and amazing. 

And Seokwoo can only look at him being above the whole scene like usual. 

“I loved your videos! And your songs as well! Aren’t you posting anymore on soundcloud? I know that Youngkyun and Taeyang are like, under an agency or something, but you aren’t right? I watched your Taylor Swift cover a billion times, I am so happy you are back on youtube, are you gonna post vlogs as well?” 

Inseong is clearly excited. And Seokwoo is totally clueless. 

There is something worse apparently, than seeing the man you live turning into a stranger and stopping loving you. It is seeing him all excited and sharing something with the only man you actually feel comfortable with. 

It’s definitely worse. 

Inseong is in front of him and he still knows pretty much everything about him: he knows his favourite song, his favourite color, he knows about that time in primary school when Inseong cried in front of the whole class because he wasn’t able to count to twenty yet, he knows every mole on his skin and every little scar he has. 

He used to love all that, and later he used to hate it. 

When Inseong fell out of love, even hearing his name was painful, even when they were together. Seokwoo kept a tracker on his journal, of every single time Inseong made him sad. He started counting the days, then he had to count how many times Inseong made him sad in a single one. 

He thought he was crazy at first: Inseong felt distant, he stopped replying to his texts as fast, he stopped asking him out, he ignored him when he was trying to talk about anything, even just his day. 

Seokwoo thought it was him: he is too needy, he talks too much. So he tried to bottle everything up, until he couldn’t do that anymore, and well, you know how it ended. Inseong promising to be a better boyfriend and then dumping him a week later. 

It used to hurt like hell. 

It doesn’t now. Seeing Inseong is terrifying, but because he is someone he knows, someone who will speak to him since they are “still friends” (they aren’t it’s just something Inseong said they’ll be but he never made an effort to act like it, like usual). He is over him. 

Now he hates him for a whole different reason. 

He got Chanhee. 

He knows Chanhee. And Chanhee is something like his safe space, something that kept him safe so many times and it’s now Inseong’s. 

He knows little about Chanhee. Chanhee doesn’t speak a lot about himself, but Inseong seems to know him, a whole different him that Seokwoo hasn’t even met. 

And it‘s terrifying. 

Inseong is usually really lucky: he has good grades, a lot of friends, everyone likes him. He went through a little hardship in the past, he got bullied in high school because they knew he was gay but the whole thing just wore off quickly or at least he said so, but he is now a very very lucky bastard.

He always gets the man. 

The second he dumped Seokwoo he was dating another guy, and not like a regular one: dollfaced boy with a Men’s Health body. Brainless since he doesn’t even know how to spell “you only live once” or bothered to check how it’s written as stated in his instagram bio, but whatever. Seokwoo was home crying and then in Seoul crying and fucking boys he didn’t like then he stopped talking. 

And Seokwoo is terrified because he can get Chanhee too. 

Maybe not now, he can clearly see the discomfort on Chanhee’s expression. But he can find a way, Inseong is charming and beautiful and everything Seokwoo is not. He is just a nerd, too tall and without proper hobbies or interests besides Taylor Swift and home decor. 

“Yeah, it was a long time ago. I think I’ll just post covers once in a while.” replies coldly Chanhee, waking Seokwoo up from his trail of thoughts. 

Usually this is enough to make people understand the conversation is over, but Inseong keeps trying, looking at Chanhee right in the eyes, smiling so wide Seokwoo asks himself how his face muscles aren’t hurting. 

“That’s a shame. I loved your songs. I always thought you’ll be a singer someday.”

He has sparkles in his eyes and he shifts closer to Chanhee, who doesn’t seem to notice. 

And Seokwoo is dying inside, but he is burning too now. There is something in him that wants desperately to walk between them, tell Inseong to fuck off from Chanhee because Chanhee is his and Inseong can’t touch him. 

It’s silly and he knows: Chanhee isn’t his or anybody’s. Chanhee is his own person, he is strong and independent and he needs no one. But he wants to claim him as his, because he knows that kind of look in Inseong’s eyes. It was the same look that was reserved to him only. 

He doesn’t know if he is being paranoid and seeing things, since he knows that if he loses Chanhee he loses everything and he is very afraid to see Inseong with other people. He doesn’t care about him anymore hit it still hurts since Inseong can have anyone he wants to and Seokwoo is Seokwoo and he has so much going on that he can’t be bothered with love. 

It hurts even more, because he sometimes thought that if he could indeed be bothered by love, or even by just a simple crush, maybe he’ll choose Chanhee. 

But Inseong will win. Inseong always wins. Because Inseong is a main character, like Chanhee. He can’t be defeated, he can’t be even scarred by other people. Even when Seokwoo tried to win against him, well, he actually tried to fix things between them but it somehow sounded like he was the offender, since he asked to be loved and Inseong made him feel guilty about it, like asking your boyfriend to act decent with you is something beyond evil. But as he said before, Inseong always wins. 

He won him, some time ago, and he’ll sure won Chanhee as well. He always gets everything he wants,  
especially if it’s something that will make Seokwoo sad. 

But Seokwoo can’t tolerate it. Inseong can tear his heart apart, he already did, but he can’t touch Chanhee. Not him, not now, when Chanhee is the only source of hope for him. Not him, because Chanhee is special, he is something so precious and rare that Inseong or really anyone, not even Seokwoo, deserves him. 

He is cold, and distant, he has weird hair and an attitude, but Seokwoo loves it. Because he knows that is special, that every single thing about him is so exceptional that he can’t help it but being love struck. And it’s not like, “love” in the way he loved Inseong. He doesn’t want to kiss him, well, he does, but it isn’t like, physical attraction. It’s more like being grateful: he is grateful that someone like Chanhee exists, and he is even more grateful for the fact that he met him and he is close, somehow, to him. 

“Yeah. Sorry, we have to go” says Chanhee to Inseong and Seokwoo is so relieved. 

Maybe it will be all over. 

But of course it isn’t, because Inseong always gets what he wants and he clearly wants to keep talking to Chanhee. 

“No way! You just got there! And you totally need to have my number, maybe we can hang ...” 

“I don’t have a cellphone number.” immediately replies Chanhee and Seokwoo feels relieved for a second. Well, he feels less like dying to be honest, but he is still the best he has been since Inseong came along. 

“Oh. Well, I’ll text Seokwoo. We definitely need to hang out again.” says Inseong, smiling, “don’t you think so?” 

If this was a movie, Chanhee would have said no. If this was a movie Chanhee would have screamed at Inseong for every single time that he made Seokwoo cry and then he would have dramatically left, holding Seokwoo’s hand, leaving Inseong speechless. 

But it is not a movie, and Inseong always wins. 

“Yeah, sure” says Chanhee, and Seokwoo’s heart breaks in a million pieces. 

They get home in silence. Seokwoo felt awkward to hold Chanhee’s hand so he put his in his pocket, and Chanhee didn’t try to take it. 

Chanhee didn’t speak at all, so Seokwoo didn’t too. They walked in silence, Seokwoo biting his lower lip so hard he felt blood on his tongue and he bit harder when it happened, because he deserved it, he deserved pain, he deserved to be punished since he doesn’t deserve anything. And now Inseong, knowing Chanhee, trying to flirt with him or whatever it was, is the ultimate proof for it. Seokwoo doesn’t deserve anything good in his life. 

He still hoped, somehow, to get something, because he is a dumb idiot. He hoped that Chanhee would have maybe explained something to him, maybe he would have gone home with him and kissed him like they sometimes do on the couch, because Seokwoo definitely could use some serotonin right now. But Chanhee just waved him bye and went to his apartment, closing the door besides him making it clear that he wants to be alone. 

So Seokwoo indeed was left alone, and being alone with his mind is the worst. 

He went to sleep, because he knew that if he had been awake his thought would have drowned him. The voice in his head is stronger than ever, like he is feeding itself with Seokwoo’s fears and self doubt. And Seokwoo is afraid of it and of what it may whisper in his ear. 

So he tried to sleep. 

He couldn’t, but he tried his best, closing his eyes and counting in his head up to 500 trying to focus only on the numbers and not on the fact that Inseong will steal Chanhee from him and he will be alone again, and again it will be his fault. 

He isn’t made well. Something is broken, something so important that makes people leave after a short while. He is like, the one people date before finding “the one”. The friend they met right before meeting their actual best friend for life. So they pull back, make other plans with the new awesome people that they met, and he is left alone. 

He is a liability. He is too much for everyone. 

Why Chanhee should be different? Chanhee is like other people, when it comes to him. Chanhee deserves better. Chanhee deserves Inseong, with his perfect grades and polite smile, Inseong who speaks to everybody and is not afraid of conversations. 

Chanhee is special, not him. Chanhee is the hero, the main character. He is just some boy that Chanhee tolerates. 

He’s not special, even if Chanhee makes him feel like he is sometimes, because Chanhee sticks with him and not with anyone else, because Chanhee kisses him and he has never kissed anyone but him.

But it’s all a lie. 

He doesn’t even know Chanhee. He knows nothing. 

Inseong knows him. He knows about youtube and soundcloud and everything and Seokwoo has no clue. He just found that boy who has the same name as Chanhee but ... 

He grabs his phone, looking for Kang Chanhee again. He finds the young boy again, a black haired child with braces and he looks carefully at him. He has short hair and a hideous haircut that was probably cool years ago but looking closely the facial features are somehow familiar. 

Seokwoo plays one of the youtube videos he is in, one called “getting burgers after school”. There are three boys screaming and laughing the first few seconds, saying hi to their viewers and explaining that they just got off school and they want to eat hamburgers. 

One of them - Seokwoo can’t really tell who it is - takes the camera and points it towards the boy named Kang Chanhee. He asks him about a math test and Chanhee laughs and dramatically puts his hands over his face and he says “TRAGIC!” then everyone laughs again.

The boy then proceeds to explain how he got almost every single answer wrong and Seokwoo can see it. 

It’s him. 

He changed a lot, he probably finally got through puberty since he looks like a primary schooler even if they said they are high schoolers, but the way he talks and the way he moves aren’t much different from now. He is more lively, he jumps around and he talks a lot, nothing like the gloomy boy Seokwoo knows, but it’s him. 

He watches another video. 

Someone off camera says that Chanhee will play any song on shuffle, all that it takes for him is hearing it once, and they proceed to show it. Chanhee plays marvellously, even if he is just fifteen or something. Then the boy offcamera says something about “Tae being so jealous” and someone else says “no!” then they laugh, and Chanhee laughs too. 

Then Seokwoo looks for another video. And another. And another. 

Until he knows the names of the boys with Chanhee - Taeyang and Youngkyun, they are classmates - and he knows everything about their high school days: Chanhee’s tests results, Taeyang’s dance class, Youngkyun’s crush on a teacher. 

It feels like some sort of parallel universe: Chanhee is a funny, outgoing boy, who has a lot of friends and two amazing best friends. He does dumb shit sometimes, maybe for the views, maybe because he is young and reckless, he is loud, he is always surrounded by friends. 

He looks happy. He always smiles. 

The Chanhee Seokwoo knows is always gloomy and he is never happy. He is sarcastic and he doesn’t talk a lot, he is always alone or with him. He doesn’t exactly look like someone who would like to film himself being silly on the streets. 

So Inseong knows this Chanhee. The real one, maybe. Seokwoo considers the happy himself the true himself, so maybe it is the same for Chanhee. The person he knows is just someone that doesn’t exist, someone wounded, that will disappear when he’ll be better. 

Seokwoo doesn’t know how to feel about it, but he hasn’t time to think about it. 

He hears someone opening the door and he knows it’s Chanhee, since no one else has the key. 

He gets up so fast his head spins for a second but he doesn’t care, he almost runs outside the bedroom, to see Chanhee is his pyjamas, looking like hell, standing in his living room. 

“Sorry. I ... I tried to sleep. I couldn’t.” he says. 

“Me too.” replies Seokwoo, standing there kinda awkwardly, looking at him. 

“Maybe it’s because it is still afternoon ... I don’t know. I ... do you mind giving me your phone? Just a second.” 

Seokwoo hands the phone towards him, in his mind still figuring out that Chanhee wants to text Inseong and when he sees that Chanhee indeed looks for his number he wants to die, and he almost burst into tears. 

But Chanhee just blocks him. 

Seokwoo says nothing, he does nothing, but he’d really like to kiss Chanhee right now. 

He doesn’t, though. 

“Sorry. I ... I can’t.” 

“Me too.” replies Seokwoo, and they just stare awkwardly at each other. 

“I ... do you mind talking? Like, one of your rambles about yourself, not about like ... before, please. I could really use one of your speeches about how amazing your are and how much of an ignorant I am or really ... anything. Please.” asks Chanhee. 

Chanhee usually doesn’t ask for anything. He doesn’t say please, since he doesn’t need to. He had never needed Seokwoo but he needs him now, for the second time in a day. 

It’s scaring. But good, now it feels good because Seokwoo can be finally useful, he can finally do something for him. 

“Yeah ... like ... I was just revising mitochondrial diseases before ... wanna talk about it?” 

Chanhee raises an eyebrow but he nods. He probably wanted to say that the topic is so boring that no one would even care or something like that, something that he always says, but right now he is not feeling like it or something. 

He sits on Seokwoo’s couch, and Seokwoo knows he has to start speaking. He knows every disease by heart, he can even give Chanhee a brief lesson about when and how they were discovered, but he stays silent for a few seconds. 

He wants to do something. 

It isn’t probably the right thing, Seokwoo is the kind of guy who can’t do anything right lately, and maybe it will be better if he doesn’t do it. But he wants to. He found so much comfort in it and he hopes to give Chanhee like 1/100 of what he gave to him. 

So he sits next to him, breathes in, and takes his hand. He takes it the way Chanhee did to him the fist time, like a primary schooler. 

Chanhee jumps a little on the couch, and for a second, Seokwoo thinks he hates it. But Chanhee turns around and he is smiling. It’s so different from the smile Seokwoo saw in those youtube videos: it’s not so carefree, it’s mischievous, like they share their own secret club. 

And he knows somehow that Chanhee is not the person the used to be. The Chanhee in those videos doesn’t exist anymore. But maybe it’s not a bad thing, because this Chanhee can smile, too. 

He’s so pretty when he does.

“Isn’t this way like, too childish or something? Someone said so, i think, some time ago ...” he says and he smiles again. 

Seokwoo intertwines his fingers to his, feeling the corners of his mouth curling upwards. 

They never mention Inseong again, and of course, he can’t call or text Seokwoo. It has been a week, and everything went back to normal, almost. 

Chanhee is clearly stressed. They never talked about his youtube channel too, or the guys Chanhee made videos with. Seokwoo googled them, they debuted as idols and they are now a two people’s group, not really successful but well, they are a bit famous. 

Chanhee doesn’t sleep. Well, sometimes he collapses on Seokwoo’s couch, but he spends the nights sleepless, working at the club or at Seokwoo’s. They just chill, Seokwoo studies most of the time and Chanhee watches Netflix on his phone, sometimes they snuggle together on front of a movie. 

They haven’t kiss ever since. 

Seokwoo feels somehow guilty for wanting to, they hold hands and everything but no lips on lips. Chanhee isn’t clearly in the mood, since he looks gloomy all the time. Still, Seokwoo misses it very much. 

The voice in his head is telling him that is all his fault. It is telling him that Chanhee doesn’t want to kiss him anymore because he wants Inseong now and no one ever could want Seokwoo when they could have him. And Seokwoo hates himself for it. 

But he has to take care of Chanhee. During the day Chanhee helps him, he takes him to the grocery store and sometimes they get coffee. But at night, it’s Seokwoo that looks out for him, especially when Chanhee’s not working. He just stays with him, making warm tea for him and covering him with blankets when he passes out on the couch. 

He goes to the club with him too. He spends all the time behind the console with him, listening to music and having free drinks. He tries not to drink too much, since he needs to look out for Chanhee. Not like he has ever broke down or anything, he is just gloomy, more than usual, but Seokwoo has a bad feeling. So he stays almost sober, making sure that he is okay. 

They went to the club tonight too. They are heading out, the party is finally over and they’ll probably go home. 

Seokwoo is tired. He doesn’t sleep because of Chanhee’s restlessness, so even drinking coffee all day doesn’t help. He can barely keep his eyes open, and he is leaning on Chanhee, hoping that at home he will collapse on the couch leaving him a few hours of sleep. 

“I am hungry. Wanna go to Shake Shack?” asks Chanhee, and Seokwoo almost punches him. 

But well, Chanhee worked all night and Seokwoo did nothing but trying out different cocktails that Chanhee took for him for free. He feels guilty to say no even if he’s very much like to pass out on his bed and never get up again. 

Besides that, he could really use a coffee now, just to survive untile he’s home and he’ll try to put Chanhee to sleep somehow. 

He knows that he doesn’t sleep because of what happened. It is his bad copying mechanism, like not talking is to Seokwoo. It doesn’t fix anything, it only makes things worse but it is something he just can’t do. 

Seokwoo understands him, but still, he is tired and people can die if they don’t sleep for too long. So he always try to make Chanhee sleep, but he feels guilty doing so. He hates when Chanhee tries to make him talk to people, he hates it so much that he pretty much terrified Chanhee reacting so bad when he did that he never tried again. 

But you need sleep to survive, so he keeps going, feeling guilty or not. 

“Okay.” he says and Chanhee takes his hand, and Seokwoo shivers for a second. 

It’s always like this, when they touch, lately. Maybe it is because he is too much touch starved, but he feels like a little electricity that sparks up on his fingers and his spine. 

He loves it. 

He loves when they touch, like, skin on skin, like this, or even when their shoulders touch while they are on the couch. It makes him feel “there”. 

He always gets lost in his thoughts sometimes. Right now he can’t really do that a lot, because he has to take care of Chanhee, but his mind doesn’t cooperate and he finds himself lost in a trail of thoughts that aren’t usually nice about himself. It is so hard to manage everything these days: he doesn’t really sleep, he has to keep an eye out for Chanhee, he has to study and take care of himself and try to survive his condition as well. And the voice in his head is telling him how much he sucks doing so, how bad he was when he told his therapist that he is worried because Chanhee seems clearly upset and he can’t help him, and how much he deserves the worst for being such a failure in everything. And then it proceeds to explain what is the worst, in every single detail: a long list of ways Seokwoo can torture himself, that sometimes sounds almost appealing.

But then Chanhee touches him, he holds his hand or they accidentally brush their shoulders and the voice can’t go on. 

They walk to Shake Shack, which is like a two minutes walk from the club. Seokwoo goes looking for a seat and Chanhee disappears towards the counter to order and later take their food, like usual. 

It’s early in the morning but it’s almost crowded. 

Seokwoo looks at people, and he sees a few faces he saw at the club: they probably had the same idea Chanhee got. It doesn’t really matter, since they don’t know him: Seokwoo stays at the console with Chanhee, and no one really pays attention to them. 

He looks at people, though. 

He started to do it a lot more since the thing started: he was usually busy with his friends or with his phone, but now he has no friends and he hates being on his phone. So he looks around, watching other people’s lives. He watches people smile at each other, laughing and crying and fighting, and it’s like having your own personal tv show around you. 

But then he spots Chanhee. 

When Chanhee is in the picture it’s like everything disappears and he has eyes only for him. He doesn’t follow other people’s conversations, even if he has to be aware of them, since he is always afraid that they’ll talk to him, but he has to look at Chanhee. He has to give him all the attention he spares from being paranoid, because Chanhee deserves. There is so much to look at: his face, his features, the way he moves, the way he talks. And Seokwoo looks at him, wonderstruck everytime. 

Even now, that Chanhee has bags under his eyes, he is so pale that he looks sick or even dead, his hair is a mess and it needs to be bleached and dyed again Seokwoo can’t do anything but staring. 

And Chanhee notices.

“What?” he says. 

“Nothing.”

“You were staring.” says Chanhee, and he stares back at Seokwoo. 

“Nothing, I was just looking at you.” replies Seokwoo, feeling his cheeks warming up a little bit. 

“Weird.” 

Chanhee takes a bite of his hamburger, and Seokwoo picks one or two fries, trying not to look too much at him. 

“It’s just ... I have never seen anyone like you.” he says. 

“You mean, with “hideous pink hair”? You made that clear like, ages ago.” 

“Hey! Well, your hair kinda grew on me. I don’t hate it anymore.” 

It’s true. 

Since Seokwoo saw past Chanhee, with black hair, a bowl cut and all smiles, he kinda started liking more the present one. Sure, now he’s less charming and friendly but it’s him. He is caring and smart and insanely talented. He’s just a bit sadder and a lot more rebellious. 

That is the big difference Seokwoo noticed on him: young Chanhee was an ordinary and relatable boy, the best friend everyone wanted in high school, right now he is nothing like the good and funny guy he was. He has pink hair because he wants to be different, he doesn’t care about what everyone cares about and he doesn’t settle for anything. He is quiet and he doesn’t really do anything too rebellious but there is a way, in his speeches, in his look, that says “fuck everything, i don’t care.” 

Seokwoo was initially pissed off by it, since it was because of this that Chanhee didn’t like him or praised him like everyone else, but he grew to like this too. He appreciates it a lot actually: Chanhee likes him for him (maybe. if he likes him at all.) and he never lies. He doesn’t care about his grades or his face, he cares about what he likes and dislikes, what he thinks about the issues that are going on in the world. No one ever cared about that, besides maybe Juho sometimes. 

“I like it when you aren’t like, so perfect and boring. Maybe after a few months you’ll end up to be actually fun.” replies Chanhee and gives him a smile. 

“I doubt it. I don’t speak.” reminds him Seokwoo, taking a big sip of his coke and thanking god for the caffeine in his system. 

“You speak to me, like, a lot.” 

“Yeah, but you know, it’s hard for me to do it with other people. I hate it. If I can like, not speak to everyone but you ever again and stay home all day with you I’ll take the deal in a second.” replies Seokwoo. 

Chanhee doesn’t say anything for a second, doesn’t even take another bite of his food, like he is lost in his thoughts. Then he speaks. 

“Yeah. That would be nice for me too. Maybe I could use a walk or a bike ride sometimes though.” 

They are very different people, but when they are sad they both like to be alone and home, far from the world. And maybe, Chanhee likes being with him too. 

They eat for a bit in silence, Seokwoo trying not to stare too much at Chanhee and Chanhee yawning at every bite. 

“You are tired.” says Seokwoo, but he knows that won’t be enough to get him to sleep when they’ll be home. 

“Yeah. I’m gonna go splash water on my face.” replies Chanhee and he gets up, walking slowly towards the bathroom. 

Seokwoo sighs. He wants to sleep and he wants Chanhee to sleep too. He can’t go on much longer like this. He is tired and he can’t even think straight. 

He is so busy thinking about ways to put Chanhee to sleep that he doesn’t notice someone from the table behind them getting up and going to his table, he doesn’t even see him, until he speaks. 

And when he does he doesn’t even need to lift his face up. He knows who it is. 

And this morning, when he had no concern besides being exhausted, becomes hell on heart. 

“Hey. Sorry. I need to talk to you, just a minute.” says Inseong. 

He is all dressed up, but he looks tired. Maybe he was in the club too, or like, on another club, they’re in Itaewon so it is all full of clubs and stuff. 

And he is there, looking all serious and he wants to talk. And Seokwoo can’t and not because he is standing face to face with the man who broke his heart. He has to talk and he can’t and Inseong will know that something is off and Chanhee is not there to save him. 

He is screwed and he almost wants to laugh since he couldn’t even see it coming and everything is so sudden that it doesn’t even feel real. 

He can’t feel anything, he can’t move, he can’t even blink. 

He can just look at Inseong, politely smiling to him. 

“Don’t worry. I’ve heard you before, talking with Chanhee. I know you don’t talk to people.” 

Seokwoo feels like dying. He is sure he will die in this instant because Inseong knows, and there is nothing worse. 

If he had to choose between all people someone who will never have to know it will be surely him. He broke his heart and Seokwoo doesn’t want to show him how much it affected him and he doesn’t want him to know that he is broken, while Inseong has never been better. 

And now he knows. 

“Listen, I am sorry for you. I am sorry for breaking up with you and everything. You are ... okay, I guess, but not my type. No hard feelings, okay?” says Inseong. 

Seokwoo is too busy trying to breathe and not to cry, since he is feeling like suffocating again, to even care.

Inseong cares even less about him. 

“The fact is, I like him, okay? Chanhee. I was his biggest fan back in high school and now he is like, super hot. I like him a lot. It’s not like, just attraction or anything, I really want to take him to dates and everything nice. I want to be a good guy for him. And I know that will upset you, because you two are close and maybe you have a crush on him, but Seok, be realistic. You don’t speak and you need therapy. He deserves someone healthy with whom he can have fun with. Someone like me, and as I said, I really, really, really like him.” 

It’s like a punch in the face. It’s like a lot of punches in the face, actually.

It’s like his worst nightmares, all summed up together. 

Seokwoo always thought that if something like this will happen he would have surely broke down. He feels like it, he feels like crying and he can’t breathe and he can’t speak and if he could he would scream for help.

He feels the urge to flip the table, to do something, anything, so destructive that people will look at it and not at the whole mess he is. 

But then he’s like struck by lighting. 

His mind becomes clear, because there is something stronger than his fears, stronger than the voice in his head, stronger than everything. It lasts for a second, then everything comes back even stronger and he has to grab the table not to scream because everything hurts, but a second it’s all that it takes. 

He breathes, then he does something he didn’t do for the longest time with anyone but Chanhee: he speaks. And it’s terrifying, but nothing compared to not speaking, and honestly, that is a first for him. 

“I’m in love with him.” he says, leaving Inseong speechless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m so sorry for the late update! i got promoted at work and i had to adjust o my new position (it’s still scary sometimes) but here i am! i hope to post more soon my schedule is a bit busy but i’ll try my best to update even once a week or something ~ thank your for reading if someone remembers this story after 19 days haha


	12. 1.1

Everything that happened next is a blur, like Seokwoo suddenly got drunk and forgot all.

He can barely remember Inseong’s eyes widening, and him running away from his table like his life depended on it. 

Then Chanhee came back and he knew nothing about what happened so Seokwoo pretended it was nothing and then they ate and got back home. Seokwoo can remember a few moments of all that. 

But he felt drunk, but on something stronger than wine. He felt drunk the next day, and the day after that and so on. The happy kind of drunk, when you got a few drinks and you feel warm and happy and everything is all right. 

Of course, everything wasn’t all right. Chanhee is still broken, Seokwoo is still unable to talk to anyone but him and Inseong when he has to make him go away from Chanhee, but whatever, Seokwoo is happy, the kind of artificial happiness you get from alcohol and drugs, even if he’s totally sober. 

He’s drunk on something stronger than that. Something that doesn’t wear off as fast as soju or coke. 

He always thought, after Inseong, that love scared him. He didn’t want to end up broken hearted again and he always pictured his next love as something that will bloom gradually, slowly, mending his wounds. 

It isn’t like that at all. 

His heart is probably still broken, but he doesn’t care. He cares about nothing but Chanhee, and he is totally obsessed with him. He spends all of his time thinking about him, when they are together he looks at him only, trying not to get caught, when they talk his day brightens and when they touch it’s pure heaven. 

He wants to kiss him. 

There’s nothing physical about it, it is totally different from before, when he was just seeking comfort from someone. He now wants him, Chanhee and Chanhee only, he wants him to be his, he wants to grab his thigh when they are next to each other on the couch, put a hand in the back of his head and kiss him until they are both out of breath, running his hand on his hair.

He thinks about him every second of every day. When he is not around he plays songs that make him think about him, he watches their pictures together, and the video he posted playing the piano that Seokwoo  
shoot. 

Nothing matters anymore, nothing but him. 

Seokwoo knows, on the back of his mind, that he is bad news. Not because Chanhee is a bad guy, Chanhee is caring and reliable, but he is totally not the kind of person who falls in love. He has a lot going on right now too and well, he doesn’t want people in his life too. He wants to be alone. 

But he stuck with him and Seokwoo is so crazy in love that it gives him hope. Maybe Chanhee likes him, They made out like, a lot, and you don’t make out with people you don’t like, right? Seokwoo will be okay with physical attraction only, even if he loves him. For a while, it will be okay. And maybe Chanhee will grow to like him as a person. 

He can’t think straight anymore. The voice in his head tries to threaten him, but he is so high on his newfound love that he can even ignore it. 

He knows that feeling will wear off soon. You can’t be drunk or high forever. But it feels like it will last for the rest of his life, so he doesn’t care. He spends all of his time thinking about him, ignoring everything else. 

Chanhee doesn’t seem to notice. 

He still doesn’t sleep, he looks like hell and he regularly checks Seokwoo’s phone to make sure Inseong is still blocked. 

Seokwoo doesn’t think about Inseong a lot. He is high on love so it seems so obvious to his fucked up brain that him and Chanhee will end up together. It’s fate, it’s destiny, and no one can come in between them. They may take a few years, like they are in a movie or something, they may fall apart and fall back together a few times but his drunk mind it’s sure: they belong together. 

Inseong won’t win. 

He knows, rationally, this is just the first stage of love. Everything feels good and possible when you fall in love. Then the feeling wears out and you get hit by reality and he knows it won’t be nice. It would be like being hit several times in the face. But he can’t care right now. He is in love and everything feels good. 

He gets to see Chanhee everyday, and that only gives him more reasons to be high on his love. Chanhee doesn’t kiss him anymore but he is still touchy. He likes to snuggle on him on the couch, he holds his hand a lot and sometimes he gets so close that Seokwoo thinks they’ll end up kissing, but like before the night with Juho, they don’t. 

Seokwoo kinda likes it. It makes him want Chanhee even more. And he likes it, all the wanting and needing. All that stuff keeps his mind full and occupied. And it’s like being constantly high, so that is a super bonus. 

Sometimes he thinks he should stop, but he brushes off the thought fast. He doesn’t care. He knows it will all fall down, okay? But he doesn’t care. 

He is living like he is drunk so he does a lot of stupid things. 

First one, he told his therapist about everything. He talked about their kisses, then about the meeting with Inseong but for the most part he talked about Chanhee and how he made him feel: high, drunk, on something stronger than anything he tried before. 

He talked non stop, so fast that his therapist couldn’t even ask questions, like he is crazy. 

He totally is. 

He never felt like this. It’s amazing, but sometimes when he is more rational, he is scared. Someday the effect will wear out and he knows it will be devastating. 

He knows that Chanhee doesn’t love him back. 

He may like him, like a crush or like a “still virgin at 20 and in desperate need to get off” thing, but he sure really doesn’t love him. 

They just won’t work as lovers. They’ll make a great team but Chanhee won’t surely let himself go too much, not as much as Seokwoo will need for a relationship. And Seokwoo needs a lot. 

He doesn’t care now. He is too drunk on his love to care, he is still in the phase that believes that everything will work out, but he knows deep down that it won’t. 

He will be broken hearted again. 

But it’s positive, right? He is able to love again, he is able to give himself all to him, even if Chanhee doesn’t love him back. 

Or maybe it’s just a crazy and unhealthy obsession about the only guy he feels comfortable with. 

Second thing: he told Juho. 

He now talks to him when he feels like it, actually, they chat on instagram (the only app Seokwoo doesn’t receive messages from since he doesn’t use it often and he actually never did, so Chanhee doesn’t check it and Seokwoo turned on notifications to be safe). 

He texted him one afternoon, when he was supposed to sleep since Chanhee finally collapsed on the couch but he was too high on love to care. 

He felt the need to talk about Chanhee for a while, and like, talk real talk, not like to his therapist. He needed to rant about Chanhee in a different way, a more comfortable way.

So he texted his brother. 

There was a time when they told each other everything. There was a time when Seokwoo used to tell him everything about boys: Juho was on the first people to know about him being gay and he was the first to hear everything about his crushes. 

They were so different: Seokwoo used to fall in love easily. He used to like a different boy every week, rarely ending up even talking to them. He was just so enthusiastic about love. 

He now is again, even if it feels more like a disease than a bubbly feeling like it did before. 

But he doesn’t care. He needs to speak about it, more than ever. He needs to rant hours and hours about how amazing Chanhee’s eyes are, about the little moles on his skin and his long eyelashes. 

So he texted his brother. 

He felt guilty doing it, because he always feels like he has to listen to people, and that everything he has to say means nothing, because he means nothing. 

He can’t believe people can text someone about something random that happened to them. Why someone would care? Why bothering someone? 

He stopped talking then. 

But there is this thing about love. Love is shitty, usually, and ends with heartbreak and Seokwoo thought it was the worst thing that happened to him. 

He was wrong. 

Love is good, Inseong is an awful person. He met the wrong guy and he broke his heart. It happens. 

But now he fell again, and again he is the wrong guy, and he knows that. 

But he is bringing some happiness in his life, like Inseong once did, and it feels amazing. 

A new love makes you feel brand new. You suddenly have a reason to get up in the morning, you suddenly have something to look forward too and it’s intoxicating. It’s also like the world is brand new: Seokwoo now sees everything with different eyes. 

The spot in front of the building is now “their” spot, every single (happy) Taylor Swift song for Seokwoo is perfect to describe Chanhee, seeing sweatpants and padded jackets makes Seokwoo think of him. 

It’s like everything changed, and it’s amazing, it’s like a whole revolution and no one but Seokwoo noticed. 

And it feels like being high on the best drug you can ever find. 

It’s like flying without being afraid to fall. 

Seokwoo knows he will fall and all that wonder will turn into dust as the time passes. And he knows it will hurt like hell. 

But right now he needs to be able to feel alive again, and being alive to him is also sharing what he is feeling, because it is too much and sometimes he feels like he will explode if he doesn’t speak. 

And the fear is gone for a moment and that’s all it takes for him to text Juho. 

He wants to die afterwards but when his brother replies he finds that is surprisingly easy to chat with him. 

It’s Juho, and he can talk about Chanhee in a way that he can’t with his therapist. And Juho asks questions, like, spicy ones, the ones that Seokwoo can’t wait to reply to.

Juho also gives him ideas. He thinks that Chanhee likes him, since well, they make out and everything. He also think that Chanhee is a bit of a bad influence to Seokwoo but Seokwoo purposely skipped the paragraph. 

He won’t care even if Chanhee was a fuckboy, and he isn’t. He likes him. He loves him. And that is finally, finally feeling good after a long time when he couldn’t even remember how to feel good. It doesn’t matter if he will end up crying again and feeling like shit. 

He will end up like this anyways. 

He is like and addict. He just can’t get enough of him and of his love for him. And for now, it is only doing good to him. 

He is speaking to his brother again, he feels better, he has something to look forward to. 

It doesn’t hurt yet. He knows it will, when he’ll want more and more of it and he’ll know that it will ruin him. 

But it now doesn’t, and he is too high to see that the heartbreak that Chanhee will give him will be the worst ever. 

Because no one has ever made him feel like this. Not even Inseong. And he knows, deep down, in the part of his brain that is not fucked up, that kind of heartbreak won’t ever mend. 

He just doesn’t care yet. 

It happens on a Friday, which is funny since Seokwoo used to love Fridays. Chanhee works at night but during the day, since a lot of people are around, they spend their time at home, snuggled on the couch. 

Chanhee sleeps a few hours, usually, even if he tries not to, so Seokwoo does too and he always feels so fresh after the few hours of sleep he gets. 

They order a takeout dinner, kimbap and rice cake soup from their favorite place and they eat on Seokwoo’s table watching cartoons. 

This Friday went exactly like this, like any other Friday, and Chanhee let even Seokwoo eat the last bite of kimbap, so he was extra happy. 

They decided to take a bike ride before heading to the club. Seokwoo rode on the back of Chanhee’s bike, like usual, hugging his back tight, and everything was good. 

They are now at their spot, watching the river, Chanhee’s hand on Seokwoo’s thigh, casually there probably, but still making his heart race. 

It happens there, when Seokwoo doesn’t even expect it. They are in their own spot, their safe space, and everything else is so far away that he stupidly thinks no one can touch them. 

But it’s a lie. 

He can. 

He hears his voice first, but that’s all that it takes for his happy drunk state for becoming a sad and self hating drunk state, even if he only got water with dinner. 

“Fancy seeing you there!” says Inseong, and Seokwoo turbos around to see him smiling. 

He looks like a fox when he smiles. An evil one. 

Chanhee’s hand grabs his thigh so hard that Seokwoo almost screams. 

“Hi.” says politely Chanhee. 

Seokwoo can’t speak. 

And it’s worse than ever. The voice in his head comes back, as strong as ever, screaming at him because look what he did, being high on love. He can’t breathe. He knows he will die. He knows he deserves it. He knows he deserves more pain. 

Chanhee gets up from the bench they are sitting on, facing Inseong, who seem so happy seeing him that it makes Seokwoo almost throw up. 

“I’m so happy meeting you again! Last time I ran into Seokwoo and I totally missed you. It’s pretty hard to reach you since you don’t have a phone number ... whatever, wanna hang out?” asks him Inseong, so straightforward that Seokwoo would have punched him in the face if he had the strength to. 

“Now? I’m with Seokwoo.” replies Chanhee, pretending to not understand. 

“No, well, I mean, if you want I am free now but ... I meant the two of us. Like a date. Sorry I was a bit excited and I didn’t word it well. I know it sounds a bit crazy but there is no way to get to know you but this. Just one date.” 

Seokwoo knows that the world has a lot of issues going on, but he feels like seeing your ex man asking out the man you are in love with in front of you is one of the worst things that can happen to him right now. 

He wants to die. 

“No.” replies Chanhee. 

“Why?” asks politely Inseong. 

He is always polite, so it doesn’t look like the total fucker he is. 

“I don’t want to have dates with anyone. Sorry.” 

“Can we talk alone for a second? I won’t bother you anymore, promise.” says Inseong and Seokwoo can just watch Chanhee go with him in a corner a bit far from him. 

He knows that Inseong will get him eventually. He knows that Inseong will persuade him to date him somehow and Chanhee and him will be like a royal  
couple, meanwhile Seokwoo roots in hell  
or wherever. He knows that trying to eavesdrop will only hurt him, because Inseong will get Chanhee. 

Inseong is charming. He is smart but the kind of smart that does fine everywhere he goes. He is not a nerd or anything, he knows pretty much how to talk about any topic without being boring. He knows amazing places everywhere, like the little Italian place where he brought Seokwoo once, that served wine and little slices of bread with cheese on it they called “tapas”. 

Seokwoo knows nothing in Seoul expect the places Chanhee took him to or a few gay bars where he found the men he hooked up with trying to forget Inseong. 

Seokwoo only likes Taylor Swift and everything Chanhee taught him. 

Seokwoo brings nothing to the table, Inseong brings always something new. He is like Juho, but more mischievous. And everyone likes Juho more than Seokwoo, so why Chanhee should choose him when he has Inseong, which is like Juho but more fun, as Chanhee would say, hitting on him. 

Seokwoo hates himself. So he gets up, trying to get closer to them and hear something, like how Inseong will stole the man he loves from him and break his heart for the billionth time. 

He deserves it. He dared to hope, and he was so stubborn he ignored all the signals: he shouldn’t fall in love again. 

Falling in love always hurts in the end. It’s like going to party on a Friday night: you have fun for like a few hours and you spend the rest of the weekend hungover and half dead. 

He was high on love, so high he spoke to Juho, so high that he shared everything and now he will have to share the fact that Chanhee is dating Inseong soon. 

It looks like a nightmare: who the hell on heart besides him will end up with his crush and his ex dating? Seokwoo bets no one ever was in a situation like this. 

He feels like dying. 

The familiar weight on his chest is back. It got heavier, so heavy that Seokwoo starts to think that it won’t ever lift from him, and he feels so stupid. 

Love made him feel weightless, like he could fly around. Now he is stuck on earth, this heavy feeling keeping him on the ground. He can’t fly, it was all a lie. He won’t ever be able to, and he is destined to see everyone high in the sky above him, while he dies slowly drowning in his tears. 

That is what he deserves, says the voice in his head. 

Chanhee is a main character. He is getting his wonderful main character life, having an handsome man like Inseong trying to hit on him and they will make such a cute couple. Inseong, so extroverted and funny, and Chanhee, a bit gloomy but super smart and insanely talented. Their love will surely be made for movie screens. 

What could Chanhee and Seokwoo be? Nothing, Seokwoo is nothing and he will be nothing more than a dead weight in Chanhee’s life. 

Chanhee deserves Inseong. Seokwoo should be happy for them. 

He isn’t, though, he hates every single second of seeing them together and now he can even hear what Inseong’s saying. 

“I mean ... it’s because of Seokwoo, isn’t it?” he is asking to Chanhee, smiling kindly. 

He has a way to make it so nice, when he speaks to him. Chanhee looks expressionless, like usual. 

“What?” he says, not even blinking. 

“He is ... he has a lot going on right now, right? I mean, I know about the taking stuff. Are you helping him with it, right? I figured.” 

Chanhee looks at Seokwoo. He saw him, standing too close and evearsdroppling his conversation. He doesn’t say anything, he just looks at him right in the eyes and Seokwoo wants to disappear, but he just can’t leave. He can’t even avoid Chanhee’s gaze, he can just look at him in the eyes and pray him silently to not break his heart. 

But Chanhee doesn’t know. He can’t know. 

“I knew Seokwoo since a long time. I was his boyfriend a long time ago and I still love him a lot, I mean, in a friendly way. He’s just the kind of person that makes you want to take care of him, I get it. But he is strong, he will get through it. And you deserve a break, I mean, you are always with him, right? It must be exhausting. He was a lot even when he was normal and I mean it in the most loving way possible but ...” 

“He isn’t.” says Chanhee, still looking at Seokwoo in the eyes, like he is talking to him. 

“You truly are amazing. I thought you were amazing because of the videos, like, you were so funny and talented and I loved your sense of humour, but you are really kind to Seokwoo too.” says Inseong and he smiles again. 

When he smiles he looks like straight out of a commercial. 

“I am not. Can we go back to Seokwoo? He ...” starts Chanhee but he is interrupted. 

“You didn’t answer my question.” 

“I said no.” states firmly Chanhee. 

“May I know why? Is it because of Seokwoo? Do you ... do you like him?” 

Inseong’s tone shifts a bit, to the usual bubbly/polite tone he uses to charm people to a little bit of a disgusted tone. It’s barely there, but Seokwoo can hear it just fine. 

He knows that Inseong despises him. He always did after their relationship ended and probably even when they were together. He also never respected him, and Seokwoo knows. 

No one really respected him, though, so he got used to it. They respected his grades, his face, but no one took “just Seokwoo” seriously. Not even himself. 

“I mean, I get it. He is handsome but, I mean, he is not really ... okay ... right now, so I think that ...” 

“I don’t care if he is pretty. And I don’t care if he is sick too.” interrupts him Chanhee. 

“Then why? Is it not because of him?” asks Inseong, too shocked to use his usual nice voice. 

“Everything is because of him. It’s just ... you don’t understand. You are a selfish and annoying. You probably think that you are so handsome and funny no one could ever say no to you or what, choose someone you thought was not worth it?” 

“I never said that!” says Inseong, clearly upset. 

“You thought about it. It’s clear in the way you speak that you think you are so much better than him. What gave you such a big inferiority complex and an awfully big ego at the same time? Mommy didn’t give you hugs when you were little? Guys used to pick up on you in middle school? Whatever it was, I don’t care, get over it. I won’t date you. I choose Seokwoo. Get over it.” 

Then Inseong loses it. 

He usually plays the victim, he never gets angry. It was Seokwoo that got angry, usually, because Inseong didn’t show up or forgot about things. Inseong then apologised, cried and Seokwoo forgave him. 

But Chanhee made him angry, maybe because he said the thing about guys picking on him in school, that actually happened, or maybe it’s just his pride. 

“Then have fun! He is crazy and you know that! He doesn’t speak! And he is so needy and demanding and ...” 

Of course, it’s all Seokwoo’s fault. It was always his fault when he was with Inseong: he was too demanding and needy. He needed too much attention. And he is now stealing Inseong’s new crush. 

He knows it is just an excuse: Chanhee isn’t choosing him. He is just choosing himself but he says something different to Inseong so he won’t bother him. 

“And you need to shut up. You acted all creepy trying to hit on me like you were such a catch and I should be pleased to have a stranger asking me out. I am not pleased. I won’t go out with a man who acts like he is still in middle school and talks bad about his ex. I can almost tolerate you being rude to me but I won’t tolerate you being rude to him.” 

Seokwoo can’t really see Inseong clearly now, he shifted a bit so he can see only like a half of his face but it is obvious that he is fuming with rage. 

“Why?! Why ....” he is saying, no more kind voice but just a dry tone. 

Chanhee could have chosen a billion different ways to end the conversation. The one more like him would have been something like “mind your business” and Seokwoo was expecting something like this, a bit rude but effective. He expected to see him walk away, his back a bit arched, because Chanhee has a terrible posture, hands in his pockets, leaving Inseong stranded. 

It would have been amazing seeing Inseong losing for once. Seokwoo isn’t really a nice person, so he would have been insanely happy about finally no being the one who ends up all alone being sad in a corner. 

But life got other plans.

There was something Seokwoo always dreamed of since he was dumped by Inseong. It was probably because he watched too many american romcoms and he ended up being too influenced by them but whatever. 

He dreamed about being the chosen one, being the one everyone stares at when he goes to prom because he ended up with the most handsome guy ever. The perfect revenge, him ending up with the best of the best and Inseong lurking in the background. 

Of course it isn’t possible. 

They are both graduated from high school, they are korean and there is no prom, and Seokwoo is now in love with Chanhee so he doesn’t want anyone else, not even a prince or an idol or something. 

Well, Chanhee is a catch, or at least he was. He was internet famous and all that few years ago and for some people that would have been enough. But Seokwoo doesn’t care. 

He doesn’t like the Chanhee he can see on past videos. He likes the one from now, pink hair and annoyed expression. He likes the way he always walks with his back a little arched, hands on his pocket, the way he is never impressed with anything. He loves him. 

He’ll choose him for him every single time, but he knows that Chanhee won’t do the same. 

He is strong and independent and he needs no one, especially Seokwoo. He doesn’t fantasise about the prince charming rescuing him, he does that himself. 

So it is so weird seeing him walking towards Seokwoo, still looking at him in the eyes, Inseong shocked on the background. 

Chanhee stops in front of him, so close that it is weird, because it is too close and if he wants to tell him something Seokwoo might not hear it since his heartbeat is so loud that it is all he can hear. 

But Chanhee doesn’t speak. 

He goes on his tiptoes and kisses him. Lips on lips for a bunch of seconds, nothing much, nothing that they didn’t already do. 

But it is magical. 

It’s like the first kiss everyone dreams of, with sparking and fireworks and all that, a kiss that makes you forget everything that is around you, including your ex boyfriend trying to hit on your actual crush looking at you from not so much distance. 

It ends too soon, and Seokwoo hears Chanhee saying to Inseong something, over the beating of his racing heart. 

“That is why.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hate this chapter so much but whatever


End file.
